Beyond the boundary - Boredom at its best (26 May 1999)

26 May 1999

Beyond the boundary - Boredom at its best

Shakil Kasem

I had a very clear cut choice. Was it to be chewing the fat with Wahidul Haq and company, or watching the England top order going through the tedious motions of getting a paltry 160 odd? TV or not TV, that was the quintessential question. A conversation on the cellphone with the one and only Col. Rashid settled everything. With no regrets whatsoever, at least not on my part.

The architects of the game took their time to put the colonials in their place. Ishrat Mahmud, not to be outdone, but certainly not the greatest expert on cricket, had it right for a change. This game which could well have changed the fortunes of this group, petered out to a tame end, leaving India and the Sri Lankans a chance to reach the rarefied atmosphere of the next stage of this competition.

For the second day in a row low scores were the order of the day. Zimbabwe were forced on the back foot from the very beginning. No matter what Dave Houghton was wont to espouse, Zimbabwe was not destined to repeat history. Since Duncan Fletcher's time Zimbabwe made its presence felt in the World Cup with the odd upset or two. Their ambitions in this competition were somewhat more grandiose. Sadly, it was not meant to be. They ran up against the dull dogs of international cricket and played the penalty of not being boring enough. Tit for tat, it was not meant to be. Coupled with their defeat against Sri Lanka the other day, Zimbabwe's lacklustre effort against England, virtually put them out of any contention.

England relied on a steady seam attack to pin the Zimbabweans down to a run rate that was easily achievable by Stewart and his merry band. Smarting from their debacle against the South Africans, England made short work of a Zimbabwean batting line-up that was tentative throughout its tenuous existence in the middle. Other than the consistent Grant Flower, who had another decent outing, none of the men in the red could withstand the steady but unexceptional English seam attack. 160 plus is simply not the score to send the shivers down the spine of any batting line-up. Campbell and his men had to pay the price.

Against India, Zimbabwe had done a Houdini, but England were in no mood to give Zimbabwe the time of day. True, they took their time, at times perhaps even making heavy weather of a prosaic and mundane attack. But England was no India and in any case there were not enough runs in the kitty to make a match of it. Zimbabwe's hour had come and gone. It was fleeting and short lived. They had promised so much more when this competition began. But whoever said life was fair?

Source :: The Daily Star