Zimbabwe spring a surprise

IT has happened to a great many outfits. A team is through to the final and the last league tie really doesn't matter; eight times out of 10 it is against an unfancied outfit and this means one relaxes more than usual. A couple of key players are rested and part-timers are permitted to have a go. Suddenly, it all begins to come apart and the team which was taken for granted gets the upper hand. At this stage, nothing can be pulled back and defeat follows. It generally has a sobering effect.

Sri Lanka went into their last league tie at Sharjah without Vaas, Jayasuriya, and Dharmasena. Jayasuriya was the only one who needed the break due to a minor injury. Part-timers like Atapattu were allowed to bowl; it is not that he gave away many runs, but it did contribute to a generally relaxed mood and when it came down to chasing the 203 which Zimbabwe had scored, Lanka found themselves in all sorts of difficulty. It was too much to expect de Silva to come good again; by the law of averages, it was the turn of somebody else. That somebody did not materialise. The final margin was 50 runs. And the last five wickets fell for an equal number of runs.

On a slow wicket, Zimbabwe began to smell blood after Lanka lost Mahanama and Ranatunge in the 19th over and plunged to 69 for four. Strang it was who got both. They had lost Kaluwitharane and Atapattu cheaply much earlier. De Silva and Tillekaratne could not break free of the shackles which Strang cast around them; he bowled seven overs for 16, the last three were maidens and he picked up two wickets. Lanka managed just 10 runs in the next 10 overs. Strangely, Strang was taken off after this excellent spell when he had three more to go.

Thereafter, de Silva and Tillekeratne got their act together and by the 39th over, Lanka had reached 131. They lost Tilekaratne at this score but de Silva was still there and 73 in 11 did not seem too difficult to get. They inched up to 148 and then it all came apart. Andy Whittall got Kalpage and Chandana and Streak took care of Muralitharan. De Silva was still there but not for long; Chicken George took the prized wicket and Streak delivered the coup de grace by trapping Sajeewa de Silva leg before.

It was something which Zimbabwe never expected, certainly not when they failed to put at least 220 on the board when they batted. Grant and Andy Flower provided a partnership of 65 for the second wicket and skipper Campbell and Guy Whittall, the man of the match, put on 66 after the team had slipped to 91 for four. Indeed, all four got starts but failed to consolidate and get to 60 or 70, something which would have ensured a much healthier total. But in the end, as it turned out, it was enough.

The replacements whom Lanka drafted in did their job well; Pushpakumara and Kalpage were steady. Even Atapattu was treated with respect. The Zimbabwe batsmen were playing for their lives; had they lost today, they faced the task of not only beating Pakistan in the last league tie of the tournament but also raising their run rate appreciably. They were thus both tentative and also trying to score as fast as they could. This combination of attitudes did not serve them well; it was something like trying to keep the scoreboard ticking over while playing forward defensively.

Lanka will be hoping that what happened to the West Indies Down Under will not happen to them. The Windies were on a winning streak then and rested some key players before the last league tie in the tri-nation one-day tournament. They lost that last inconsequential tie to Pakistan and their winning streak ended; they lost successive finals to Pakistan and ended up as the runners-up.

Zimbabwe's victory means that the winner of the last league tie will go through to the final to meet Lanka. It is virtually a semi-final. If Pakistan lose, then Razaullah Khan will have to eat his words. If not, he may well go to bed feeling that he was right after all.