Zimbabwe team coach Carl Rackemann talks to Larry Moyo about therecent Test series against India and the coming triangular tournament
Larry Moyo22-Jun-2001Zimbabwe team coach Carl Rackemann talks to Larry Moyo about therecent Test series against India and the coming triangular tournament.In terms of reflecting on the recently ended series I feel that in thefirst Test in Bulawayo, if our first innings batting had been inexcess of 300 rather than 173 after winning the toss and batting firstwe could have done better. It was a good batting wicket butunfortunately we didn’t bat well.From that point in time we bowled quite well and we batted muchbetter in the second innings. We have been playing good cricket sincethen, culminating in the win in the second Test.But it could have been a series win if we got more runs in the firstinnings in Bulawayo. That’s a bit disappointing but it’s history.That’s what happened. To lose in the first Test and come back and winthe second Test in the fashion we did, and with the guys playing thequality of cricket they did with bat and ball was pretty excitingstuff, and to come back is a fantastic effort.I don’t like dealing in negatives but it’s disappointing that we losta bowler in each match through injury, Henry Olonga in the first Testand then Watambwa in the second. The other negative was that firstinnings batting in Bulawayo.I suppose it’s very difficult to talk about negatives because thereare a lot of positives in so much that the bowlers and batsmen justseem to bowl and bat better and better as the matches wear on. Westarted from the lowest position but we just improved quitedramatically and the bowling in the second Test was quite exceptional.We haven’t had a good opening partnership but what has been good isthat young Dion Ebrahim has looked better and better all the time andhe made a significant contribution in the second Test after we lostthree quick wickets in the first innings. He had a partnership withAndrew Flower to hold it all together and allow us to finish with avery good first-innings total and that was a tremendous contributionby him.What we also need to see in one-day internationals coming up is a goodopening partnership that gets through the new ball and sets the pacefor a very big innings. That’s not far away; we are getting closer toseeing such a thing happening.A draw in the series was a fair result because we had to come backfrom a loss and win the last game to draw it. Definitely we playedbetter cricket than India in the second Test and you can’t pretendthat they did not play better cricket than us in the first Test. So Ithink a draw was fair result if you put it like that.It would have been quite exciting to have a third match. It’s quite aninteresting point because we seem to find ourselves playing a lot oftwo-match Test series. We did in India last November and Bangladeshhere in April. Certainly in two matches you can get a 2-0 result or a1-0 result. But when it’s 1-1 there is a bit of that unfinishedbusiness.There are positives and negatives in playing matches in winter and insummer. Obviously the weather in winter is ideal for cricket. The factthat it’s not raining is a big positive. The main thing is that it’smore convenient for all the other countries to come to Zimbabwe atthis time of the year.The negative is that we don’t have enough other cricket being playedby the players who are not in the national side playing. It’s thefirst time that we are playing in winter. I think it’s a terrific ideaand its worth persevering with.Zimbabwe’s cricket is moving forward and we will work towards itscontinued progress. To beat India, who had beaten Australia 2-1 andourselves a week ago, says a lot about the team and what the guys arecapable of.Talking about the triangular series: what we have here are twodangerous sides, India and West Indies, if they happen to play well.But equally they are teams we have played and beaten before so I thinkit will be exciting cricket.There’s going to be a chance for all sides but from my point of viewwe know what we are capable of achieving and we have to do the rightthing with bat, ball and in the field and fight their capabilities toour abilities. Our aim is to reach the final first and then win it,and we can achieve that if we play to the best of our abilities.The withdrawal of Andy Flower has a huge impact on the team, the makeup of the team and the balance of the side. We are talking of onecricketer who no team in the world would want to be found without.It’s quite an unfortunate development for us and for Andrew himself,and we have to change our plans and look at how we are going to gointo the matches, the structure of our bowlers and who bats where andall sorts of things. So there is a lot to cover for us to go into thematches without Andrew.We have West Indies on Saturday with revenge on our minds. We last metin the Carlton and United series in January and we lost three of ourfour matches. Out of the three that we lost, two of them we shouldhave won and it was very disappointing, having beaten them in Englandlast year. So revenge is a strong word, but we certainly want to turnthe tables, and it’s achievable.They struggled to beat CFX Academy by eight runs on Sunday and theywere beaten by seven wickets by the Zimbabwe Country Districts. Butthe history of cricket is full of situations where teams have a badstart and then suddenly come good.It’s terrific that the Academy did as well as they did and almostdefeated them. As to the Districts who beat them on Wednesday,congratulations to them. Nevertheless that does not make the WestIndies easy to beat. If we took that sort of attitude, we would havebeen locked up. So we still have to go out and meet them in the firstone-day international on Saturday and treat them with the respect thatwe would regardless of what the results of their first warm-up gameswere.I have just had a quick look at the Harare Sports Club wicket and itlooks very, very good. The Test wicket was an excellent cricket wicketand if we have something along those lines on Saturday, we will bevery pleased.