WELCOME BACK ZIMBABWE
Twenty-five year wait between Tests
When Zimbabwe take the field this week for the four-day Test, it will be the ninth time that a Zimbabwean XI has played at Trent Bridge.
And their record in Nottingham is pretty respectable. They have lost only two of those matches, with one historic win to count among their successes – in the World Cup of 1983 over the might of Australia!
In those days, the Prudential Trophy was a 60-over competition, though the scores would today look slim in the 50-over tournament.
Zimbabwe were put in by Aussie skipper Kim Hughes and a team that had several names now very familiar to English cricket audiences – Dave Houghton, Duncan Fletcher and Kevan Curran among them – compiled a modest 239-6 with future England supremo Fletcher top scoring with 69.
Australia’s reply stuttered somewhat and only a typically robust 50 from Rod Marsh kept them in the hunt. Kepler Wessels, father of Notts favourite Rikki, made 76 but at strike rate of 58.46. In the end, Marsh could not get his side over the line and Zimbabwe were celebrating victory by 13 runs.
Duncan Fletcher put in a captain’s performance, adding 4-42 to his first innings batting to take the Man-of-the-Match award.
In the warm-up to that competition, Zimbabwe were scheduled to play a 55-over match against Nottinghamshire but the June weather ensured that not a ball was bowled.
A year earlier, the county had hosted Zimbabwe in a 45-over match that brought an emphatic home win. Notts batted first and made 218-3 with unbeaten half centuries for Clive Rice and John Birch. The visitors could only make 142 all out to lose by 76 runs.
In 1989, the Zimbabwe Under-25s played at Trent Bridge, meeting the County’s Second Eleven.
It was ten years before they visited Nottingham again, the senior side playing England in a World Cup match. Paul Strang, who had played for Notts in the previous season in First-Class and List-A cricket, was in the side that lost by 7 wickets in a low-scoring game. Zimbabwe made just 167-8 in their 50 overs and it took an England side led by Alex Stewart 38.3 overs to chase down 168.
The only Test played to date at Trent Bridge was a five-day game in June 2000. Rain washed out day two completely and reduced the playing time throughout. Centuries by Mike Atherton for England and Murray Goodwin, playing his final Test, for Zimbabwe were the highlights of a drawn match.
Later that month the visitors were back to play a 50-over match against Nottinghamshire, winning by five wickets. Paul Strang, back at what had briefly been his home ground, took 3-31 as Notts were restricted to 207, which Zimbabwe passed in 41 overs for the loss of five wickets.
The most recent visit was back in 2003 when Zimbabwe met England in a National Westminster Bank 50-over series. England, with Nottinghamshire’s Chris Read in their ranks, could muster only 191-8 in their 50 overs; Zimbabwe didn’t exactly rush their task – taking 48 overs to reach the winning score, Grant Flower top scoring with 96.
Probably the most famous Zimbabwean to play cricket in England is Graeme Hick – playing for England, not against them. Indeed, Hick was in the England team that played his home nation at Trent Bridge in both 1999 and 2000.
In a long career, Hick played 65 Tests and 120 ODIs and made more than 41,000 First-Class runs, including 405no made for Worcestershire against Somerset in 1988. His highest score against Notts was 227no, made at Worcester in 1986; at Trent Bridge he came close to matching that, recoding 213no in a County Championship fixture in 1992.
Hick is one of only three players (with Gooch and Tendulkar) to have passed 20,000 runs in List A cricket and one of twenty-five players to have scored 100 First-Class centuries.
He is the only cricketer to score First-Class triple hundreds in three different decades (1988, 1997 and 2002). His other records include being the second highest run scorer of all time after Graham Gooch and the second highest century scorer after Jack Hobbs.
Against such impressive figures, his Test record is less striking – just six Test hundreds and his 113no against West Indies at Trent Bridge in 1995 was his highest Test score in England.
Hick apart, a number of Zimbabweans have made their mark in English cricket. Both Duncan Fletcher and Andy Flower have coached the England teams and Grant Flower was one of several players from Zimbabwe to have a career in county cricket.
Indeed, one of their number, Kevin Curran, has provided two England cricketers with his sons Sam and Tom each making international appearances for the Test and One-Day teams. Brother Ben is in the 2025 Zimbabwean squad for the current Test.
At Trent Bridge, Paul Strang was the first Zimbabwe-born player to represent Notts and has been followed by Steve Elworthy (though he played his international cricket for South Africa), Brendan Taylor and, currently, Dane Schadendorf.
Born in Bulawayo on February 23, 1965, Elworthy moved to South Africa as a teenager. His First-Class debut came for Transvaal B against Natal B in 1987/88, but he did not obtain a place in the South Africa Test side until he toured England with 1998 team. His single Test on that visit was at Trent Bridge.
Since his retirement Steve Elworthy has become a successful cricket administrator, including as tournament director for the inaugural Twenty20 World Championship in South Africa in 2007.
In February 2010 Elworthy was appointed as Director of Marketing and Communications for the England and Wales Cricket Board and subsequently took up a new role as Director of Special Projects following the conclusion of his contract as Managing Director of the 2019 ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup. Steve Elworthy was awarded the MBE for services to cricket in 2018.
Strang, a regular Zimbabwe International, made his mark in the 1996 World Cup when he took 12 wickets in six games. He had played in 20 Tests and 59 One-Day Internationals when he joined Notts in 1998 and the year before had enjoyed a successful season as the overseas player for Kent, with 63 wickets and 590 runs in First-Class matches.
In his 13 First-Class matches for Notts, he took 30 wickets with a best of 5-166 against Kent at Canterbury. With the bat he contributed just 300 runs but rarely went in higher than number 9, a position seen by some as too low for a player who had made a Test hundred against a Pakistan side with an attack led by Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis.
Strang played in 22 List A fixtures, taking 27 wickets and scoring 246 runs. His best figures came in a rain-hit AXA Life League match against Warwickshire when he took six wickets in 15 balls to finish with 6-32.
Brendan Taylor joined Notts on a three-year contract with an impressive international record and the experience of cricket around the world, particularly in limited overs matches. In 2015, he signed as a Kolpak player for Nottinghamshire, announcing his retirement from international cricket at the same time.
Taylor, then 29-years old, had captained his country in ODIs from 2011, when he took over as skipper after the World Cup, until 2015 when he stood down after leading Zimbabwe in that year’s World Cup tournament.
Harare-born Taylor became the first batter in the Club's history to register centuries in each of his first two matches, against Loughborough University and Middlesex. His arrival at Notts brought to the club an experienced middle order batter, an occasional off-break bowler, and a more than useful wicketkeeper. He played 35 First-Class games for Nottinghamshire, with a top score of 152 and six centuries in all; in List-A cricket he was equally valuable, contributing 661 runs in 23 innings with a top score of 154.
At the end of the 2017 season, Nottinghamshire agreed to release Brendan Taylor from his contract for personal reasons and he was able to return to Zimbabwe and pick up his international career. In November 2018, Taylor became the first batter for Zimbabwe to score a century in each innings in a Test on two separate occasions.
Though born in Harare, Dane Schadendorf, a British passport-holder, opted to commit to the English domestic game after turning in impressive performances with Zimbabwe’s Under 19s, making ten appearances, including six at the ICC Under-19 World Cup.
Schadendorf spent 2020 playing for Caythorpe in the Nottinghamshire Premier League, whilst also featuring in friendly matches for Notts’ Second XI.
He made his first team debut in unusual circumstances – coming in as a ‘sub’ for a player who was themselves subbing for the regular First XI keeper. Ben Duckett was called into the England squad after starting the game against Derbyshire in 2022 so Schadendorf became the deputy for the deputy.
The wicket-keeper batter acquitted himself pretty well, scoring 24 in his only innings and taking four catches when Derbyshire batted again.
He was to make a full First-Class appearance towards the end of the 2024 season, playing in the away fixture with Kent at Canterbury - a convincing win for Notts that all but clinched Division One survival. Schadendorf made 29 in his one batting knock and took six catches in the game, three in each Kent innings.
His contract with Nottinghamshire CCC was extended at the end of that season for a further year.
No doubt Dane will enjoy seeing the hation of his birth represented at his home griund and we hope that he, and all cricket fans, get an excellent game.
May 2025