Murray Goodwin & Grant Flower: The architects of the famous Chester-le-Street chase of 2000. ©Getty
WHAT GOES AROUND
Talkin' about a revolution - When Zimbabwe stormed the Natwest Series
In the English summer of 2000, Zimbabwe's cricket team adopted a song. They played it in the dressing room before going out on the field, and they played it on the team bus, cranking the volume up after ODI victories and belting out the lyrics in time - but not necessarily in tune - with Tracy Chapman.
Don't you know
They're talkin' 'bout a revolution
It sounds like a whisper
Poor people gonna rise up
And get their share
Poor people gonna rise up
And take what's theirs
Looking back 20 years on, you could take your pick as to which particular revolution the lyrics were relevant to. At the time, white farmers were being removed from their land - often forcibly - by black veterans of the war for independence, the latter spurred on by President Robert Mugabe and his political party. Two decades after independence, whites still owned the vast majority of the most fertile land and Mugabe was singing his own revolution song.
The landscape was similar in cricket - when the national team beat West Indies by six wickets at Bristol in the opening match of a tri-series in July 2000, just three of the 16 squad members celebrating to Chapman's tune were black, and only one had played that day. When they triumphed over England at The Oval two days later, they did so with an all-white XI. While the players did not sense it at the time, a racial revolution was afoot. The tables, we now know, were just starting to turn.
Yet the revolution that captain Andy Flower and his men were singing about had to do with something else: money. Flower's generation had not only emerged at the same time that Zimbabwe gained Test status and became a regular fixture on the international scene, but also in the decade in which cricket transformed into a professional venture. While their predecessors had jobs as lawyers, accountants and farmers, and would fit net sessions in around those roles, the Flower brothers, the Strang brothers, the Whittall cousins as well as the likes of Heath Streak and Alistair Campbell were not only constant tourists by the late-1990s, but had reached the heights of the Super Six phase at the 1999 World Cup. Somehow their dedication and success was not being reflected in their salaries.
"I think at that stage (the year 2000) we might have toured 18 months on the trot, and we were just on very small contracts," Guy Whittall recalls. "We were more or less living off our daily allowances. If you got 20 or 25 bucks a day, you put 10 in your pocket and said, 'Right I've got 15 to live off'. I don't think we got match fees or anything like that."
According to Streak, the final straw came when the players discovered that their bus driver for the tour of England was earning more than they did. Offspinner Andrew Whittall, described by his cousin as a "mathematician of note", took up the cause of creating a Players' Association that could follow in the footsteps of similar new bodies in Australia and New Zealand. At an arbitration, the Zimbabwe Cricket Union were forced to open their books, which revealed that the players were receiving less than 10% of total income.
A righteous anger developed at a time when several of the players already had other stresses. Streak, Whittall and Gary Brent all came from farming stock and were naturally worried about the safety of their families back home as the land invasions provided a constant backdrop to the tour. At one point the tension boiled over when a black player made a comment about land reform that was poorly received by a white player, who confronted his teammate to enquire about what he had meant. Comments were made that, depending on whose recollection one goes by, were either personal or racist. The players later reconciled but the incident found its way into the official tour report, and would later provide fodder for claims of racism within the game.
Along with the ongoing dispute over money, such distractions contributed to an innings and 209-run thumping at the hands of England in the first Test at Lord's, with Zimbabwe bowled out for 83 and 123. It took a speech by Flower to shift the energy.
"At the beginning of the tour we played terribly," says Guy Whittall. "Andy Flower brought us together and said, 'Guys we've got a game to win here, we've got a series to win, we've got to start playing ball. Leave this crap (about money) behind. Leave it with the guys who should be in charge of it, and the rest of you concentrate'. He had one-on-ones with everyone, and basically just turned the whole thing around."
With their frustrations channeled more creatively, and a team song adopted, Zimbabwe's fortunes improved. They held their own in the