Date-stamped : 02 Jan97 - 22:14 Report The Herald (Harare) Scenes of jubilation as fans celebrate By Vuyisa Qunta Harare Sports Club broke into scenes of jubilation as 7000 spectators celebrated Zimbabwe's historic triumph in the best of three British Airways London Gatwick one-day cricket series against England on Wednesday. Spurred on by a vociferous crowd, the Zimbabwe team did not disappoint. Drum-beating in the Castle Corner led by three women and a man dressed appropriately in national colours went on throughout the match. And every run scored by Zimbabwe in the morning was greeted with shouts of "Pamberi neZimbabwe cricket". One could have been forgiven for thinking that they were at a political rally as war songs punctuated the proceedings. The old traditional hunting song, "Dzinomwa munaSave", also brought some of the revellers to their feet stomping. With champagne spilling from the balcony, supporters savoured victory over a team widely resented for its administration's numerous vetoes of Zimbabwe's attempts to gain Test status in the 1980s. Zimbabwe Cricket Union development coach, Newell Majengwa, said it was a pity the English had always vetoed Zimbabwe's entry into Test cricket. "A sign of their continued arrogance is that even yesteday in the BBC they were calling our side a bits and pieces team. The joke is on them because they are the bits and pieces (maparts)." "It's a huge victory for a country with such a small cricket population to beat the country which started the game," said Hamish Ruddland. "It's going to have a massive impact on the sport," he said, echoing the sentiments of Angus Mackay and Ben Watson, who felt crowd support turned it for Zimbabwe in a finely balanced contest. For five-year-old Tawanda Masimbe, who said he enjoyed the game, it was inspiring. "When I'm big I want to play for Zimbabwe." A highly festive Manuel Gates said: "We're a powerful nation in anything we do. We fought for the victory and deserved it. It's beautiful." The heat-stopping final two overs which saw England needing 19 runs from the last two overs, 16 from the final six deliveries and eight from the last two, proved a bridge too far for the faded empire. Asked whether they would ease off in today's final game with the series now safely in the bag, home captain Alistair Campbell said they were going for a clean sweep. David Lloyd, the English coach, said Zimbabwe were a decent one-day side and on the day and in the series came out the better side. Source: The Herald (Harare) 3 January 1997 Reproduced with permission. Contributed by Roger Stringer Report- Electronic Telegraph Jan 1st 1997 New year met by old failings By Martin Johnson in Harare IT IS probably debatable as to whether England were the worst team of 1996, but for the moment, anyway, there is not much argument about 1997. Frankly, this year's model looks suspiciously like last year's clapped out old banger, and yesterday's defeat was yet another example of a side that goes into mental paralysis whenever it comes under pressure. Zimbabwe have never before won a one-day international series, or indeed any series, but they now have an unbeatable 2-0 lead to take into the final game. The joint man of the match, John Crawley, wins a British Airways ticket to anywhere in the world provided he goes via Gatwick - which is a destination the entire team might be conNew year met by old failingstemplating should they lose again tomorrow. There was some confusion over the official margin of defeat, because of the new system of revising targets for weather interruptions. After poor England bowling had allowed Zimbabwe to re- cover from 38 for four and 126 for seven to 200 all out, rain reduced England's allocation to 42 overs, from which, under the old overall run-rate system, they would have required 169. However, this one - so indeciferable that the Admiralty might be interested in it for a new secret code - is the brainchild of the Royal Statistical Society magazine's editor and a university mathematics boffin, and coughed up a revised target of 185. When England fell short of this, many people thought that Zimbabwe had won on faster scoring rate, but as Zimbabwe actually scored their runs more slowly (4.0 as opposed to 4.3) this would have meant that England, bless them, would have invented a new way of losing. The system is known as the Duckworth-Lewis plan, and while there is not yet any official name for England's batting formula, Heath-Robinson has a suitable ring to it. They are the great tinkerers of international cricket (more than 30 Tests have gone by without them fielding the same team twice in a row) and yesterday's masterplan involved the captain, Michael Atherton, coming in at No 5. The bars open early on Zimbabwean cricket grounds and when Atherton came in at a slightly precarious 95 for three from 23 overs, an in- ebriated voice shouted: "See you back here in a minute, Atherton." In fact it was 38 minutes later, as the captain found some semblance of form before flat batting a long hop to long-on, and by that time England were apparently well on course. The key dismissal, however, was just around the corner. Crawley, who had taken over Atherton's No 3 position in the first one-dayer in Bulawayo, had made 73 well-crafted runs from 108 deliveries, and only had to bat through to the end to see his team home. However, it was then that England's latent propensity for making poor decisions under pressure undermined them once again. Crawley jumped out of his crease to the leg spinner, Paul Strang, missed, and was stumped by Andy Flower. Strang, having already dismissed Atherton, then made further progress towards his joint man-of-the-match award with Crawley when Ronnie Irani charged down the pitch and was stumped by such a margin that he was almost invisible in the side-on television replay. England had made an awful start, losing Nick Knight to a reckless drive in the third over, only for Crawley, and Alec Stewart in particular, to put them back in charge with a second-wicket partnership of 66 in 10 overs. Stewart's dismissal, however, when he got too thin a contact with an intended dab to third man off Guy Whittall, was the prelude to a period between the 16th and 33rd overs during which England were unable to muster a single boundary. So by the time Irani was sixth out at 165, England required 20 runs off the final 14 balls. It was the penultimate over which finally killed them off, Heath Streak conceding only three runs to leave Robert Croft and Darren Gough needing 16 from the final over. Croft's edged slog at John Rennie produced a first-ball four, another heave brought two off the next, but none of the final four deliveries yielded more than one run. Zimbabwe, put in to bat on a pitch with much more pace than the Test wicket, slogged their way heartily to 38 for four from 10 overs, while England's bowlers, and Chris Silverwood in particular, were busy donating 13 extra deliveries from wides and no-balls. The fielding was not very special either, laughably so when Gough overran what should have been a simple catch on the square-leg boundary. That was an important miss, in that Andy Flower went on from 15 to make 63 from 114 balls before skying a catch off Alan Mullally. Streak then made an unbeaten 43 in the closing overs, leaving England with more to do than they had bargained for. David Lloyd, the coach, kept his emotions admirably in check on this occasion - unlike Alistair Campbell, Andy Flower and Craig Evans, who were severely reprimanded by Hanumant Singh, the match referee, for excessive appealing - despite some provocative prodding from a Zimbabwean journalist hoping for a "we murdered you" quote. Lloyd, however, returned a verdict of suicide, saying: "The game was there to be won, and we weren't up to it." He also lightened the mood when he said: "I have never taken Zimbabwe seriously . . . ." breaking into a chuckle when he realised he had missed the word "not" out of the sentence. That's how it is when you're the England coach. If you don't laugh once in a while, you'll spend all your time crying. Source:: Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/) Contributed by The Management (help@cricinfo.com)