Fleming: 'I'm not sure it's good for the game'

Shane Bond celebrates ... but was the result good for cricket as a whole? © AFP

Stephen Fleming, New Zealand's captain, said he feared for the future of the game in Zimbabwe after his side had completed a crushing innings win inside two days at Harare Sports Club. "It's good for us, but I'm not sure it's good for the game," he told reporters after the woefully one-sided first Test. "The mood was clinical out there. After the first hour the goal was to win this Test today.

"To be able to turn the game around so quickly was a good effort. To get 20 wickets in a day you have to bowl well and this was some of the best cricket I've seen this team play."

But Tatenda Taibu, Zimbabwe's captain, struggled to find any positives. "It was very disappointing," he said. "I thought we would bowl them out on the first day and our batting wasn't good enough. It's not a good feeling."

Phil Simmons, Zimbabwe's coach, said that the side would need to look at where they went wrong, especially on the first day when they had New Zealand 113 for 5 and let them amass 452 for 9 by the close. But he rejected the inevitable calls for Zimbabwe's Test status to be reviewed. "I don't think it makes sense to think like that, all we can do is try to improve our cricket. It's always been hard for us. We are one of the smaller countries in Test cricket."