Could it be that cricket, in the absence of the suspended national football team, has filled the void to become the people’s game in Zimbabwe?
Telford Vice / Harare Sports Club
ARE we in San Francisco? The Namib Desert? Nuwara Eliya? Newfoundland? On top of Table Mountain? No, that really is Harare out there draped in wan, wintry mist early on Saturday morning. It is eight degrees Celsius, or not nearly warm enough to play cricket. Except maybe in the northern reaches of Yorkshire.
But in two hours the first ball will be bowled in the day’s men’s World Cup qualifying matches: between Nepal and the Netherlands at Takashinga, and Zimbabwe and West Indies at Harare Sports Club. Happily by the time that happens the funereal sky clears to reveal the familiar vast cornflower blue dome that hovers upturned over this country for much of the winter, replete with temperatures in the mid-20s.
With matches starting at 9am because of the lack of daylight and floodlights at all four grounds in use in Harare and Bulawayo, batting is best avoided until the sun is well up and has dealt with the morning’s moisture. The numbers back that up: the team batting second had won only four of the dozen games in the tournament before Saturday, and two of those trend-bucking wins were achieved in mismatches. In eight games, teams have lost from two to four wickets with nine to 25 runs scored inside the first 10 overs. What would Saturday’s airborne veil of additional dampness do to that theory? Not enhance it, as it turned out.
At Takashinga, Nepal stumbled to 7/1 in the third over when Aasif Sheikh dragged Logan van Beek onto his stumps. But Kushal Bhurtel and Bhim Sharki stabilised the innings with a stand of 39 off 75, only for the last nine wickets to fall for 121 and leave the Netherlands a measly target of 168. They mowed it down in 27.1 overs with seven wickets standing to clinch their place in the Super Six.
All of which passed without the nation’s eyes blinking. They were fixed on HSC, where at a still chilly 8am the stands were already starting to swell with spectators. Shai Hope won the toss and chose to field — like every captain has done in all 14 matches in the tournament. But the building crowd had something to warm them in the shape of a patient, careful opening partnership by Joylord Gumbie and Craig Ervine that yielded 63 runs and endured into the 16th over. So much for the condensation considerations.
The throb of president Emmerson Mnangagwa’s helicopter overhead — he holds meetings across the road at Zimbabwe House — flooded the scene after three overs, but Gumbie took back ownership in the sixth with a slashed six off Alzarri Joseph.
Thus emboldened, the denizens of Castle Corner, many of them wearing white hard hats and red overalls, took to booing Keemo Paul when he dared to run past their stand. The beef goes back to the 2016 under-19 World Cup in Bangladesh, when Paul, in his delivery stride, ran out non-striker Richard Ngarava to end the match.
Zimbabwe had been nine-down in search of three off six to win that match. The result put the Windies in the quarterfinals — they won the title that year — and the Zimbos on a plane home. The Castle Corner faithful will never forgive Paul for adhering to the rules, just as they will never berate Ngarava for costing his team the game by stealing ground.
With that came a flashback to Tuesday’s game between Zimbabwe and the Dutch at HSC, where Max O’Dowd was serenaded by the crowd with the same Shona song he had learnt to sing during an earlier visit to the country. Something has shifted in the culture of cricket in this country if the same all-black section of the crowd that feels the freedom to hail a white opponent can also heap scorn on a black player in a team who have championed black excellence for so long, and all in the space of three days. Could it be that cricket, in the absence of the suspended national football team, has filled the void to become the people’s game in Zimbabwe?
The jeers had barely subsided when Rovman Powell dropped Ervine at mid-on off Kyle Mayers. It was the first of four spilled chances, three of them off Joseph’s bowling. Another flashback, this time to Thursday at HSC, where the faces of Hope and Nicholas Pooran dimmed with disbelief when they were asked, during their press conferences, about their readiness for Saturday’s big match.
For them, they didn’t say out loud, the match wasn’t that big. For Zimbabwe, and Zimbabweans, it was huge. And it showed from both sides of that equation, not least in the good vibrations coming from a ground now packed to capacity; perhaps beyond.
With Paul taking three wickets and Joseph and Akeal Hosein sharing four, the West Indians were able to limit Zimbabwe to 268. Sikandar Raza and Ryan Burl scored 68 and 50 and shared 87 in a stand that started at 112/4 in the 25th. But its end, when Hosein trapped Burl in front in the 41st, started a slide of 6/69. Zimbabwe’s total was their lowest in their three matches in the qualifiers and the first time they have been dismissed in four ODIs.
But the Windies’ listlessness in the field followed them to the crease. Brandon King and Mayers began the reply solidly enough with a joint effort of 43, and Mayers did his bit with a sturdy 56. It was the latter’s dismissal in the 21st, when he failed in the not insignificant task of clearing the 2.03-metre Blessing Muzarabani at long-off, that gave the narrative the beginning of its decisive turn.
Hope and Pooran, both century-makers on Thursday, were cleared away for 30 and 34 by Raza and Ngarava. When Tendai Chatara, who went for 46 in his first seven overs, reduced West Indies to nine-down by bowling Roston Chase off the edge in the 43rd with 44 required, the game was up and the crowd knew it. Their roar was louder than any helicopter.
Chatara ended it, and the collapse of 6/58, a dozen deliveries later when Joseph bunted a simple catch to Raza at short midwicket. Hosein, the non-striker, took the defeat, by 35 runs, especially hard: teammates and opponents alike couldn’t prise him from his haunches for more than a minute. This time the noise from the crowd was less raucous, more satisfied — the expression of a collective mind comfortable in their new knowledge. It was a clear day in Harare and they could see forever.
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