Grant Flower, updated biography

FULL NAME: Grant William Flower
BORN: 20 December 1970, Salisbury (now Harare)
MAJOR TEAMS: Zimbabwe (since 1989/90), Mashonaland Under-25 (1993/94- 1995/96), Mashonaland (1996/97- ). Present club team: Old Georgians
KNOWN AS: Grant Flower. Nickname `Gobby', from when he was the youngest player in the side
BATTING STYLE: Right Hand Opening Bat
BOWLING STYLE: Slow Left Arm Spinner
OCCUPATION: Professional Cricketer

FIRST-CLASS DEBUT: Zimbabwe v England A, at Queens Sports Club (Bulawayo), 10 March 1990
TEST DEBUT: Inaugural Test v India, at Harare Sports Club, 1992/93
ODI DEBUT: 15 October 1992, v India, Harare Sports Club

BIOGRAPHY (updated January 2002)

Grant Flower has for most of his career held a unique position in Zimbabwe cricket. He was the country's one tried and tested opening batsman, an anchorman capable of stabilizing the innings and batting for hours on end. Although he saw it as an important part of his job to prepare the way for such strokemakers as his brother Andy and Alistair Campbell, the importance of his role should never be underestimated. It never was by his team-mates, who also rate him as one of the best all-round fielders in the world. Although generally seen in the gully, he is superb in any position, and his great friend Alistair Campbell during his period of captaincy often used him as a `trouble-shooter', placing him, especially in the one-day matches, wherever the action was, knowing that he was the ideal fielder for the job.

Grant is the youngest son (he is followed by a daughter) of Bill Flower, himself a fine cricketer in the past and now one of Zimbabwe's leading schoolboy coaches. Naturally Grant grew up with a strong sporting background, and he names his father as the major influence throughout his career. His family moved to Johannesburg when he was still very young, and his first cricket was played there at about the age of five. When he was about eight, the family moved back to Harare where they have lived ever since. Grant, along with his brother Andy, attended North Park School, which regularly produced strong teams in those days, and they soon established themselves as the best players in their age groups. As he had started school later in South Africa, Grant was always playing sport at a year above his class level in Zimbabwe, which was not easy.

He matured quickly, though, as both batsman and bowler, although he bowled seamers in those days. He was then as much a bowler as a batsman, and his accuracy in particular earned him numerous wickets. He changed to spin while at high school, feeling that he did not have the build for a seam bowler. He was primarily a rather dogged middle-order batsman at that time, an accumulator rather than a strokeplayer. He joined the Eagles inter-schools holiday cricket programme, where he scored what was probably his first century, now opening the innings. After reaching his fifty he suddenly decided to improvise and played some superb strokes on his way to his century. In his final year he captained a Harare Schools team at the national primary schools week, where he scored another century, one or two fifties, and his team won all their matches handsomely. He was a natural selection for the Partridges team.

At St George's College, he continued to make the representative teams, being selected for the Fawns while in Form 2 and the national schools team during his final two years at school. He had actually attended practices and played for the Old Georgians Sports Club second team since his final year at junior school, moving up to their first team in Form 4. His progress was gradual, with no really high scores, but he was batting down the order for them and, as a slow scorer, time was against him. Despite playing with and against others so much older than he, he felt comfortable, knowing that time was on his side. He was selected for the Young Zimbabwe squad while still at school.

After leaving school he went overseas, to England, to play, as he has done frequently since, apart from a year in Holland. Since 1990/91 he has been employed by the Zimbabwe Cricket Union during the Zimbabwean summer, making him a year-round professional cricketer. When not playing, he did a lot of coaching at schools, and also helped at cricket festivals and represented the ZCU at functions.

He had already appeared in first-class cricket, being selected first to play in the five-day matches against Mark Nicholas' England A team. In his second match, the third of the series, he opened the innings and scored a determined fifty; his century partnership with his brother Andy helped to ensure that Zimbabwe saved the match after a disastrous first innings.

The turning point in his career, he feels, was during the 1990 ICC tournament, the winners of which would qualify for the World Cup. This was a vital competition for Zimbabwe, as failure to win and exclusion from the World Cup and the consequent loss of revenue would have been an insurmountable blow to cricket in the country, which would almost certainly not be playing Test cricket today had that happened. Grant, still aged only 19, was a late selection for the team, most probably because the selectors felt that as a slow scorer he would be unsuited to limited-over cricket. Left out of the first match, he opened the innings in the next with Grant Paterson, and scored an unbeaten 53 in a ten-wicket victory over Singapore. Then came an innings of 70 against Canada, which proved quite invaluable as the other leading batsmen disappointed, and unbeaten innings against Papua-New Guinea and the U.S.A. He did not do so well in the semi-final and final, but had done enough to prove his worth. From then on, he has been an almost automatic selection for Zimbabwe.

Unfortunately he was to miss the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand; playing for a Zimbabwe development team in the newly readmitted South Africa, he broke a bone in his arm while batting, which put him out of the tour. However, he was fit and ready the following season, when Zimbabwe were promoted to Test status and the Indians arrived for the Inaugural Test match.

Before the Test began, he was nervous, as were all the Zimbabwean players, but he mentions the importance of making nerves work for a player to help him get psyched up. The newly appointed coach John Hampshire, a man who himself had overcome the nerves to score a century on his Test debut, gave them an excellent preparation to enable them to take the field with a positive, confident attitude. Grant stepped on to the field with Kevin Arnott to open the innings, with Arnott taking strike. It was a flat pitch, but there were few bad balls and the batsmen were forced to work hard for their runs. Grant dug in and shared an opening partnership of 100 before Arnott was out. He himself grew in confidence as he passed his fifty and had strong hopes of scoring a century on his Test debut, as Dave Houghton was to do. Unfortunately, just before the close, when on 82, he was given out caught at the wicket to a ball which he feels flicked his pad rather than his bat, the first of a surprising number of controversial dismissals that have affected him in Tests.

Later in the season, in India, he came closer to a Test century, being dismissed for 96. He had not yet scored a first-class century, but put that right during a brief tour to England in 1993, when his 130 helped to cause some controversy, as Zimbabwe chose to save a match they could not win at Scarborough rather than play what was considered `festival cricket' and risk throwing it away.

The tour to Pakistan in 1993/94 was a disappointment, as he had to take first strike against Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis on their home pitches; he scored only 79 runs in the three Tests. His confidence had taken a knock but, as he himself says, the secret of success is coping with failures. He was more than ready when Pakistan paid a return visit to Zimbabwe.

The First Test opened on a pitch giving assistance to the seamers, and Pakistan were perfectly equipped to handle that. The ball was moving about all over the place, three wickets fell for 43, and Pakistan were quite confident they could roll Zimbabwe over. Grant himself says that those who feel that this match was `fixed', in view of the bribery allegations that were to follow, should have seen just what the Pakistani bowlers were doing with the ball that morning. But Grant himself was still hanging in there, a triumph of concentration and technique. While his brother Andy took the initiative, Grant kept his end up, accumulating when safe to do so, taking it one ball and one session at a time, and was still there on 88 at close of play. He grew more confident as the innings progressed, and moved on the following day to his first double-century.

Grant has always batted particularly well with his brother Andy, especially when they used to open the innings together in one-day matches. Their running between the wickets is brilliant, as they have got to know each other so well over the years and have such trust in each other, and having Andy at the other end often seems to bring out the best in Grant's batting. Were it not for Andy's wicketkeeping and his dislike of opening the batting, they would be the ideal solution to Zimbabwe's opening partnership problem. Unfortunately, more recently Andy has batted down the order, partly due to his wicket-keeping duties, and the opening partnership has been less stable as a result.

Since that series, Grant notably grew in confidence, maturity and scoring ability, as he himself admits. "When I first started off, I was very limited in my strokeplay," he confessed some years ago. "I had just two or three shots that I was prepared to play. Now every time I go overseas in the winter, I try to work out a new shot to add to my game and to bring it back with me, to make the trip really worthwhile. Playing all the time keeps me thinking about cricket and increases my confidence. Obviously I need a break every now and again, or I end up getting stale." Grant's own improvement, he agreed, was more mental than technical, a matter of positive thinking and steadily increasing confidence.

He was again the key man in the series against England in 1996/97, and much to his surprise his dogged 73 on a difficult pitch and heavy outfield in Harare won him the Man of the Match award. It was never a spectacular innings - that was virtually impossible in those conditions - but it was of inestimable value as he held together the Zimbabwe batting, making a useful first-innings lead possible, and gave the Englishmen a lesson on how to bat in what are often regarded as typical English conditions. He did little in the first two one-day internationals, but contributed a fine 62 in the third.

It was during the triangular series in South Africa that he really gave evidence of how much he had progressed as a strokemaker. Facing a South African attack spearheaded by Allan Donald and Shaun Pollock, and an Indian attack containing Javagal Srinath, sometimes the fastest of the lot, he played superbly throughout. A magnificent 90 in the first match against South Africa held together a brittle innings and enabled his team to put up a strong fight, as did his 62 in the third South African match, while he also got his team off to sound starts against India, culminating in his 61 not out in the Bulawayo match against India as the latter were on their way home, taking Zimbabwe through to a decisive victory.

In all these matches he batted with greater fluency than ever before, and started 1997/98 in the same vein, having added the pull shot to his repertoire. During the 1997 season he was coaching at Epsom College in England, although still playing frequently, including a first-class match for M.C.C. against the Pakistan A tourists, when he scored 78. He also scored a century for M.C.C. against a John Paul Getty XI. He would like to play county cricket, if given the opportunity, and would certainly be an outstanding acquisition for any county looking for a run-hungry batsman who can also bowl and is a brilliant fielder in any position.

Against New Zealand Grant enjoyed the best season of his career to date. Admittedly the opposition bowling was perhaps the weakest in Test cricket at that time, but Grant showed a greater confidence and fluency than ever at this level. When Zimbabwe were put in to bat in the First Test, in conditions that considerably assisted the bowler, he dug in and ground out the runs in his old style, taking 166 balls to reach a fifty and speeding up a little to reach his third Test century in 269 balls. In the second innings, with Zimbabwe ahead by 91 runs and batting conditions good, he dominated the bowling from the start. His second century of the match - the first Zimbabwean to achieve this feat - came off 155 balls this time, and he reached it in thrilling fashion. Chris Cairns bowled a bouncer outside off stump in an attempt to tie him down, but he stepped back and uppercut it superbly for six over the third-man fielder. When he was eventually out, for 151, the Zimbabwe innings lost momentum and eventually continued for too long for his team to win the match.

He showed similar skill in the Bulawayo Test, with a fine 83 in the first innings. Second time round, with Zimbabwe looking for quick runs, he gave a dazzling display of strokeplay to score 49 off just 46 balls before uncharacteristically gambling on a very risky single to take him to his fifty, and being run out. Time and again he lofted the ball over the fielders and his judgement was impeccable.

After scoring 66 in the first one-day international, he failed in the next two, but enjoyed good form in the Three Nations tournament, against Kenya and Bangladesh. His six matches included four fifties, and in three of them he shared century opening partnerships with Andy. In Sri Lanka and New Zealand, the two tours that were perhaps the lowest point for Zimbabwe since they were granted Test status, he batted consistently, five times passing 30 in eight Test innings, but never went on to play a major innings when it was needed. He did a little better in the one-day matches, scoring a fine century in the third of the losing series against Sri Lanka.

Zimbabwe returned home to play Pakistan with their morale low, but it was then that Grant played another crucial innings for his country. Against fine pace and swing bowling, especially by Waqar Younis, he kept his wicket and then slowly began to accumulate runs, mainly through selective drives. He eventually carried his bat through the innings for 156 not out, a fine innings for him but even more critical for his country, as his example helped to restore morale and fighting spirit to the team. Apart from his brother Andy and Heath Streak, he received little support, but after that, although he did not score heavily again himself, the rest of the Zimbabwe team played more positively and confidently, and they were in fact not far short of winning that First Test.

During the off season of 1998, Grant again played in England, this time for Harrogate. He suffered poor weather and poor pitches, but concentrated on patiently batting out the overs. He rates it as no better than an average season, hampered by finger injuries, despite scoring about 1100 runs with three or four centuries. He found the experience valuable as he was always under pressure to score runs.

He had a bad start to the 1998/99 season, breaking a finger attempting a return catch in a club match just before the Indian tour, and this resulted in his missing a Test match for the first time for Zimbabwe, after playing in all of the first 30. He returned for the Mini World Cup in Bangladesh, but failed; then at Sharjah he played a steady innings of 87 not out in the first one-day match against Sri Lanka to help bring his team victory.

He then went through a period of poor form when he was unable to put his finger on what was wrong. He did little in the Test matches in Pakistan that followed, and played 12 one-day innings without a fifty until he broke through in the final of the one-day triangular tournament in Bangladesh, against Kenya. Despite losing his opening partner Neil Johnson in the first over, he went for his strokes and reached a superb fifty off only 41 balls. His century came off 82, and altogether he hit a dazzling 140 off 125 balls, the highest ever innings for Zimbabwe in a one-day international apart from Dave Houghton's 142 against New Zealand in the World Cup of 1987/88. This led to Zimbabwe's highest ever one-day total, 325 for six wickets, and a record victory margin of 202 runs.

Then came the World Cup, and again Grant failed to make the impact expected of him, failing to score a fifty in the eight matches and having a particularly lean time in the Super Six section. He had successive scores of 45, 42 and 35 in the first round, but failed to go on to a really significant score. After the competition, for the first time for many years he opted to return to Zimbabwe for the winter and take a break from cricket.

Unfortunately he did not benefit from it, following it with his leanest season in first-class cricket. In Nairobi he hit a sparkling 91 in a one-day match against South Africa, but there followed a long period of failure when he, by his own admission, seemed to lose track of where his off stump was and was frequently dismissed cheaply, usually lbw or caught at the wicket or in the slips. He went through the long season, including tours to West Indies and England, without a Test match fifty, and with only two one-day fifties before the tour of England, the second coming when dropped in the batting order. Against Sri Lanka he six times reached double figures but only once reached 20; against teams with stronger pace-bowling attacks he often failed to do as well.

In England he again failed in Tests but, dropped to number five for the triangular tournament also involving West Indies, he played some fine innings, the best of which was a superb unbeaten 96 when in partnership with Murray Goodwin he helped to add an unbroken 186 for the fifth wicket to beat West Indies when chasing 288. This he feels was his best one-day innings.

However he continued to struggle as an opener; although his defence appeared solid again in 2000/01 against New Zealand, the team who had suffered so much at his hands three years earlier, he had lost the confidence to attack. With Goodwin and Neil Johnson having abruptly left, he had two less experienced players in Gavin Rennie and Stuart Carlisle at the top of the order who seemed inhibited by his own lack of strokes, and generally the Zimbabwean innings got off to a painfully slow start. He battled his way to 49 in the Harare Test, but it took him almost five hours and it appeared that a temporary drop to the middle order in Tests as well might benefit both himself and the team.

"It has been a nightmare," Grant admits. "Especially the first part of the English tour - and West Indies wasn't all that great! I got back a bit in the one-day series in England, batting down the order. I'd rather play opening, but management and captain seem to think I should be in the middle order. Generally it's been a lot of downs and a few ups, but hopefully I'll get more consistent again." He is still uncertain of where the basic problem has been, apart from the off-stump problem. "The difference is last time New Zealand were here I was putting away the bad balls and this time I wasn't in that confident a mood," he says. "I didn't feel I could go for my strokes because I wasn't playing confidently. Defensively I was all right but attacking there wasn't the same flow."

"I think mentally just coming through towards the end of England, you can't just give up and I think maybe it has made me mentally a bit stronger," he thinks. "I wouldn't say I'm any better technically, but I know I can do the job and hopefully it will make me a bit stronger mentally in the future."

The drop in the order came in the tour of India in 2000/01, and he immediately responded with a dashing, if risky, century in the next Test match, having decided that the answer was to be positive. To date, he has stayed down the order, generally at number six, where his form has continued to be patchy, but every now and then he has played a superb innings. Against Bangladesh in Bulawayo he equalled Dave Houghton's record by scoring 142 not out in a one-day international.

After a run of failures in the middle order against South Africa and England, at Alistair Campbell's suggestion Grant moved up again to open the innings in the final two one-day internationals against England, and immediately responded with superb innings of 96 and 104. He has continued to open again in one-day cricket since then, and still considers the possibility of opening in Test cricket again. But he has still not regained his consistency and overall has not contributed as much to the side as he did early in his career. At least part of the problem presumably is psychological, a matter of confidence.

Grant has concentrated on his batting more than his bowling, bearing in mind that Zimbabwe's prime need is for a reliable opening batsman and anchorman. Although he does enjoy bowling seriously in the nets, and bowls fairly regularly in first-class cricket and even in Tests, he considers the main value of his left-armers is in one-day cricket, to take the pressure off the front-line bowlers and keep it tight. "I'm not a genuine turner of the ball," he says. "I rely more on accuracy and varying my flight to take wickets. Unless I'm playing on a turner in India or Pakistan -- I think anybody can turn the ball on some of those pitches!" His faster action when pushing the ball through has often been thought suspect, though, and he was called for throwing in a Logan Cup match in 1994/95.

To add insult to injury, so to speak, during the recent New Zealand tour of Zimbabwe when he was struggling with the bat, he was called for throwing in the Bulawayo Test by the controversial Australian umpire Darrell Hair. He was not bowling in his quicker style then, and some felt that Hair was acting from past prejudice. The Zimbabwe Cricket Union cleared Grant to bowl in the Harare Test, where Hair was not standing, and he had no problems with English umpire David Shepherd.

Grant was appointed captain of the Mashonaland Under-23 or Young Mashonaland team during its three years in the Logan Cup, and did an excellent job. His inspiring leadership, in man-management as well as leading by personal performance, played a major part in winning the competition during its first year. He was sounded out about taking over the captaincy of the national side when Andy resigned, but did not feel it was the right time for him, concentrating as hard as he was on developing his batting then. But he is spoken of very highly around the country for his captaincy skills, and is not averse to reconsidering the position in the future, should the opportunity arise.

Grant feels that there are plenty of good players in Zimbabwe who have all the talent required for success at Test level, but haven't yet worked out their games; they don't know what their best shots are and so try to play too many. The result of this is that they don't spend enough time at the crease because they are usually in the pavilion! So much of this can be improved by talking about the game more, discussing things with such players as Andy, who has an excellent approach, and learning that way.

The highlights of his career have been Zimbabwe's Test victory over Pakistan and the one-day series victory over England, with his double-century against Pakistan his greatest personal achievement. Wasim Akram he names as the most difficult bowler he has ever faced.