Of course the first morning of the summer was the worst morning of the summer. Test cricket, like a bank holiday picnic, is a reliable way to send the English sun running, and Zimbabwe’s first day of Test cricket in this country in 22 years started under thick ripples of ominous grey cloud, and in a freezing breeze. In the shop at the bottom of the Radcliffe Road Stand staff were sent running to the stock room to fetch up fresh boxes of beanie hats and hooded tops, as the crowd, caught short by the sudden dip in temperature after weeks of good weather, made an unexpected run on their supplies of winter clothing.
Zimbabwe won the toss, which was the last thing that went their way all day. “We’ll have a bowl,” said their captain, Craig Ervine, and it must have seemed like a good idea at the time. Ben Stokes admitted he would have done the same thing himself given the conditions overhead.
But Ervine might have been starting to think twice after the first 45 minutes or so, which he spent chewing his lip at slip, hands thrust deep into his pockets, as Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett rattled off the first brisk fifty of what would go on to be a 231-run partnership.
By the afternoon, Zimbabwe looked a sorry lot. They were so still and stiff in the field they might have been installed by Antony Gormley as a public art work.
One tyre had already gone on their four-wheeled fast-bowling attack, the hefty left-armer Richard Ngarava, had to leave the field after he did himself a mischief while bending down to fetch the ball. And another, Tanaka Chivanga, was midway through one of the worst days anyone’s ever had in the long history of Test cricket in England. By the time he had finished his third spell, he had bowled 12 overs, and taken none for 83.
Which meant the lion’s share of the work was left to the tireless Blessing Muzarabani, who knows a thing or two about what it takes in these conditions after doing the rounds of the county grounds during a two-year-spell in Northamptonshire’s first and second XIs, and the off-spinner Sikandar Raza, who ended up wheeling through 24 overs even though he had only just flown in from Lahore, where he has spent the last six weeks playing for the Qalandars in the Pakistan Super League.
In the circumstances, it was hard to judge exactly what England’s runs were worth.
There were four blokes bashing out Beatles covers around the back of Trent Bridge during the lunch break. Perched on top of an old shipping container that serves as an outdoor bar, they had mop tops, black polo necks, baggy caps, the full bit. As the day wore on it started to feel like 22 on the other side of the boundary rope were playing imitation Test cricket, too. No doubt there will be a lot of English chuntering about what it all means, and whether the mismatch between these teams is devaluing what is, we’re always told, the pinnacle of the sport.
The handful of Zimbabwe fans in the ground didn’t seem too bothered by any of that. And round about tea they banded together in the Fox Road Stand, and started belting out songs in a futile attempt to inject a bit of energy into their exhausted team. There were perhaps 50 of them, all expats. They would have been singing all day, one explained, but it had taken them a few hours to find each other in the stands. He was annoyed Trent Bridge’s ticketing system didn’t give them the option of sitting together in the away end. He was baffled by the idea anyone might want to sit in a bit of peace and quiet.
“If England come to Zimbabwe we can beat them,” he said, “and you know why? Because of all the support we have.” His name was Simba and he had come to the game with an old friend, Ben. They were born and raised in Harare, then moved to Derby. The worse things went for their team on the pitch, the louder they sang off it. “Of course,” Simba told me, “you can’t be a Zimbabwean cricket fan if you’re going to let the bad times get you down.” And they have known a lot worse than this. The player strikes, the political interference, the maladministration. It was six years ago that the ICC suspended their team from playing cricket altogether.
So England’s runs will have an asterisk attached. Given everything they’ve been through since the team was last here, maybe Zimbabwe’s wickets ought to, too.
