Zimbabwe cricket's 20-year tale of crisis and corruption Add to those already mentioned Eddo Brandes, the chicken farmer who twice bowled his country to one-day victories over England, Andy Pycroft, a classy batsman who is now an ICC match referee, the precociously talented young batsman Alistair Campbell and John Traicos, the devilishly accurate off-spinner. Traicos was 45 when he played in this Test, 22 years after he had played his last Test in 1970, alongside Graeme and Peter Pollock, Eddie Barlow, Ali Bacher, Mike Procter and Barry Richards for South Africa against Australia at Port Elizabeth. But Traicos was still supremely fit. In India's first innings, which on a lifeless pitch crawled along even more slowly than Zimbabwe's in a match always headed for a draw, he recorded astonishing figures of 50-16-85-5, including Sachin Tendulkar for a duck. Traicos, Pycroft and Kevin Arnott, Grant Flower's opening partner, were all lawyers, and if you speak to Andy Flower now he will say that these type of men were huge early influences upon him, as they found remarkable balances in their lives with their ability to commit fully to work, cricket and family life. In terms of their current team director Flower and a previous coach, Duncan Fletcher, England has much for which to thank Zimbabwe then. And it may be that Yorkshire's aggressive left-handed batsman Gary Ballance, recently selected for England's winter Performance Programme, makes his mark as a player in the near future. The nephew of Houghton, he was born and brought up in Zimbabwe before coming to Harrow School where he played in the same side as Kent's Sam Northeast. But the politically traumatised Zimbabwe has also caused England so much anguish. Think of the 2003 World Cup, famous for the courageous black-armband protests of Andy Flower and Henry Olonga, when England deliberated for so long about whether to go to Harare to play, and a similar dilemma when touring there a year later. And since 2008 when the government, in objection to Robert Mugabe's regime, banned Zimbabwe from touring here the following year, there has been no cricket played between the countries. An Englishman, Alan Butcher, now coaches Zimbabwe, and there are other good men - including Grant Flower, Campbell and Heath Streak - involved in the game there, but, cruelly, maladministration and financial crises still blithely walk hand in hand. Zimbabwe returned to Test cricket last year after exile since 2005, but fixtures understandably remain elusive. Pakistan want to postpone a scheduled tour there in December, so Zimbabwe's next international cricket may not now be until March of next year. They had not played for seven months before the World Twenty20. It is just not enough. Since their debut in 1992, Zimbabwe have only played another 86 Tests, and won just nine of them, with five of those coming against Bangladesh. It is the saddest of 20-year tales.