More new ground was broken in Zimbabwe cricket as the small Midlands city ofKwekwe hosted a full international touring team in a first-class match forthe first time

John Ward14-Jul-2001More new ground was broken in Zimbabwe cricket as the small Midlands city ofKwekwe hosted a full international touring team in a first-class match forthe first time. West Indies enjoyed a good day of batting practice,finishing with a total of 374; Zimbabwe A finished on 26 without loss. Thestar, for the second game in a row, was West Indian opener Chris Gayle, whoadded 162 to his unbeaten 257 against the President’s XI.The Zimbabwe A side included Alistair Campbell, desperate to find his battingform. Zimbabwe A won the toss and, as has become usual on winter mornings when the conditions often give inordinate help to the bowlers, put the West Indiansin to bat.The bowlers found little or no movement off the hard, flat pitch, but didfind the ball swinging early on. Daren Ganga and Chris Gayle dug a firmfoundation before the latter began to unleash some powerful offside drives.After the first hour the boundaries began to flow across the fast outfieldand the home bowlers appeared doomed to being on the receiving end of aserious pasting.The openers sailed past their century partnership; after the openinghalf-hour or so, none of the bowlers succeeded in troubling them and onlyBryan Strang appeared capable of restricting them, as Travis Friend, RaymondPrice and Mluleki Nkala all proved expensive. Gayle at one stage looked oncourse for a century before lunch, when the score was 154 without loss(Ganga 60, Gayle 92).He reached three figures shortly afterwards, and set his stall to run upanother double-century. Crouching in slightly ungainly fashion at thecrease, he nevertheless drove elegantly, especially straight and on the offside, flicked with superb timing off his toes and adding the occasional glidepast the slips.Just as the pair looked on course to eclipse the first-wicket record forZimbabwean cricket, 280 by Ray Gripper, when he scored his 279 not out, andJono Clarke against Free State in 1967/68, Ganga skied the hard-workingRaymond Price to extra cover and was caught for 79 (Gayle had 160), with thetotal 242. Then, without addition, new man Shivnarine Chanderpaul was givenout caught at slip.Gayle now lost his fluency and, four overs later, was dismissed lbw for 164,trying to swing Price across the line. Price struck again in his next over,as Sarwan (0) chopped a ball on to his stumps, and four wickets had gonedown for 21 runs, most of those scored by Carl Hooper.A brief stand followed between Hooper (36) and Marlon Samuels, which wasbroken soon after tea when Barney Rogers had Hooper caught at slip with hisoff-breaks; 305 for five. But then Ridley Jacobs joined Samuels and thepair added 60 together before Jacobs was out to a brilliant diving catch byStuart Matsikenyeri at mid off, giving Bryan Strang a well deserved wicketwith the second new ball. Immediately afterwards Samuels (50) was caught atthe wicket off the same bowler.With only their tail left, West Indies might well have declared, but insteadtheir lower order pottered around at the crease to little effect. The WestIndians were all out for 374, the last five wickets having fallen for just nineruns. Price was applauded off the field by his home crowd for his figuresof five for 121.Alistair Campbell, in poor form recently, had clearly decided to take thepositive way back, driving two fours in the opening over from Marlon Black.Hamilton Masakadza also played some good drives, and Zimbabwe A finishedwith 26 without loss (Rennie 10, Masakadza 16).