da doce： Not until the penultimate day of this short series did Zimbabwe’s batsmen putup a performance that they were thought to be capable of
Andy Jalil04-Jun-2000Not until the penultimate day of this short series did Zimbabwe’s batsmen putup a performance that they were thought to be capable of.Having surrendered in both innings so meekly at Lord’s, the tourists thistime, led by a marvellous century by Murray Goodwin, lifted their game to putup a batting display which will ensure them a most honourable draw.In the course of his brilliant innings of 148 not out, Goodwin was superblyassisted by Neil Johnson first and then the captain Andy Flower. Bothpartnerships yielded centuries. With England’s bowling becoming wayward andappearing quite ordinary, with the possible exception of Darren Gough whoclaimed both the wickets that fell today, Zimbabwe must get the praise fortaking advantage of it and dominating the play.While Zimbabwe’s batsmen were putting up their excellent show on yet anotherrain-affected day, one’s attention was drawn to an article published in aSunday newspaper today, on the on-going saga of bribery and match-fixing.This time the name of India’s former captain, Sunil Gavaskar, has beenmentioned.While it has not been suggested that Gavaskar, who retired in 1987 as thescorer of the highest number of Test runs and with 34 Test centuries – morethan anyone in history – took money from bookmakers personally; his wife’ssuspected undisclosed assets are being looked into by police in Mumbai.It is felt that there is some cause for suspicion with certain allegedirregularities and this undoubtedly creates a smear on India’a legendaryopening batsman.One former Indian Test cricketer who played along side Gavaskar for a numberof years, keeping-wicket and even opening the batting with him is FarokhEngineer, who is also well known as Lancashire’s long-standing wicket-keeper.CricInfo spoke today with Engineer who, apart from his cricketing-dayconnection, is also a close personal friend of Gavaskar: ” As an old pro, ithurts me so much to hear all this. I do not believe that Gavaskar or KapilDev (whom Manoj Prabhakar has accused recently of offering money to throwmatches) would lower themselves.”Engineer went on to say:” I am very surprised that this sort of thing is nowcoming out. I played with Sunil a lot and never thought of him being involvedin anything improper. He is above all this. I would have known or had someidea if he was implicated in any way at all.”He added: ” Cricket is a wonderful game and this sort of thing is ruining itsname. I would stress that Gavaskar would never stoop so low. It would be avery sad day for Indian cricket if he or Kapil Dev were found to beimplicated in any way.”While there is an abundance of such favourable comments about Gavaskar, itremains to be seen what the outcome will be of the investigations.