da fezbet： The spectators who ran the gauntlet of the demonstrators at Lord’sreceived about two-thirds of the overs expected today, and aboutone-third of the excitement
The Wisden Verdict by Steven Lynch22-May-2003The spectators who ran the gauntlet of the demonstrators at Lord’sreceived about two-thirds of the overs expected today, and aboutone-third of the excitement. It was cloudy most of the time, and the ballmoved about obligingly – so England’s batsmen were never likely torun away with things after they were put in.Zimbabwe’s attack did just enough with the ball to throttle Englandback. There was sufficient lateral movement to strangle expansiveshots at birth, and Michael Vaughan, normally so fluent, struggled toget off the mark.Later Nasser Hussain was also tied down, and was lucky to survive apeach from Douglas Hondo that jagged away down the hill. When thesun came out, ironically, Hussain pulled Travis Friend’s first ball downlong leg’s throat, thus ruining a thousand puns about Zimbabwe’sFriendly bowling. England’s left-handers did better: Marcus Trescothickpassed 50 in a Test for the first time since the opening match of theAshes series at Brisbane last November, and Mark Butcher jumped inbehind some solid drives. But Butcher, too, was lucky to escapeHondo’s clutches – early on Dave Orchard turned down what appearedto be a cast-iron lbw shout.Andy Blignaut was the fastest bowler on display, although Heath Streakran in as enthusiastically as ever. Streak was fortunate to trapVaughan, who deflected the ball onto his stumps off his body, butunlucky not to remove Butcher, who was dropped at second slip. Buthis best move of the day was undoubtedly winning the toss. Looking atthe cloud cover it was hard to escape the nagging feeling that theinexperienced Zimbabweans (only Grant Flower of their number hasscored a Test century) might have been shot out for a decisively lowscore had Hussain and his bowlers had first go.Steven Lynch is editor of Wisden CricInfo.