The player's view: Murray Goodwin on the fifth one-day international

Zimbabwe gained a consolation victory in the final one-day international against Sri Lanka, and Murray Goodwin played a major part in seeing them home after a minor crisis in the middle order. Here he talks to John Ward about that match.

JW: Murray, what was the mood in the Zimbabwean camp before the final match?

MG: When we arrived at the ground it was obviously a do-or-die situation because of the bad publicity we have had. The crowds weren't turning up to the games, and we felt we had to perform to put ourselves back on the supporters' maps, so to speak, and get them coming in again. So everyone was pretty fired up, but in saying that we were also pretty relaxed, because we had already lost the series and so had nothing else to lose now. We had played good cricket for half the games before; it was just a matter of putting both pieces together and we were both relaxed and also determined to show the supporters that we can still play well at this level.

There was a relaxed feeling at the warm-ups in the morning before we lost the toss and they decided to bat. That was surprising because they like to chase and they are very good chasers. I don't know why they did that, but it helped us; I don't know what Andy [Flower] was going to do but I told him we should bowl first as it helps our bowlers by getting a little bit out of the pitch in the morning, but I don't know what he wanted to do. But I was nice just to be relaxed and focused, and I think we just went out there and enjoyed ourselves.

JW: Just the thought of bowling first and having to chase a target: memories of that disastrous match in Bulawayo might come back.

MG: Yes, unfortunately there we had a bit of a stuff-up in the middle when we had eight or ten overs where we only scored about 20 runs, and that put a huge amount of pressure on us because we had been going along superbly when it just halted. We should have done that easily.

Having said that, in this game the scores were similar - only a few runs different - and I think we just wanted to go out there with a positive frame of mind and keep the strike rotating, which hadn't happened in Bulawayo for a period. That was my job, to come in after we had lost those two wickets, to join Stuart there and rotate the strike.

When Sri Lanka batted, it was good to get Jayasuriya out quickly caught down the leg side because he's a very dangerous player, but the guys seemed to bowl in the right area, as opposed to what we did the day before. With our bowling at times we seemed to give them two easy balls an over to score a boundary, and that's not good enough at this level. I know they guys don't mean to do it, but it happens, and it's happened too often at times. It puts pressure on the team that way, but in saying that yesterday we bowled really well; the guys hardly bowled any extras, and that had been a huge problem for us - too many wides in particular.

We just seemed to bowl in the right area; Guy didn't think he had bowled very well, but he took wickets for us, and it sometimes works that way. He's bowled superbly in some of the games and hardly got any wickets, so it works in roundabouts. It was nice to get wickets just at the right times, and if we had fielded a little better who knows, we might have got them out for 180 or 190, but a couple of run-outs were missed.

I thought John Rennie did a superb job and Bryan Strang bowled pretty well, even though he hasn't been considered for the other games, but Bryan's one of these bowlers who has the Pom-Mbangwa sort of accuracy and he can generally put it on the spot. That's what we did yesterday just to create pressure. If you're bowling a line and length you can set fields for it, whereas the day before Andy struggled to set a field because every bad ball was going to the boundary. We were bowling short or full, not a length.

One thing we have found difficult as batsmen is that the Sri Lankan bowlers seem to be more disciplined, and our openers apart from one game had to make the four-balls; they weren't given half-volleys or long hops. They had to use their feet to come down or move around the wicket to place the ball in the gaps, and it was superb batting by Grant and Alistair against such disciplined bowling. It's nice to see that we turned that around and bowled similarly to the way they had been bowling to us. That created pressure, and the guys backed up well in the field.

JW: I was just thinking that if we do have times when the bowlers spray it around a bit, somebody like yourself might develop his bowling a bit so you can be like one of these negative New Zealand medium-pace 'dobbers' and keep things quiet.

MG: Yes, it's something that I'm starting to work on a bit more now, and I feel I can play a role in bowling my four or five overs like that, just giving away three or four an over, and get through a few overs so the better bowlers can come on.

JW: Any particular tactics that were used that you can talk about, to keep quiet or dismiss the Sri Lankan batsmen?

MG: It was just a matter of not giving them any width because all their batsmen seem to appreciate it if they get any width; they free their hands and have a go at the ball, and if it goes over it goes over, if it goes in the gap it goes in the gap, if it goes to hand it goes to hand. They don' seem to care, and that's something that maybe we can learn from, that they back themselves to whack the ball, in the gaps or over. Our job is just to bowl pretty straight to most of their batsmen and try to set a field accordingly. If we bowl too full or too short, it disappears, so we have to bowl a line and length. We did that in Bulawayo, and they scored only 213, and we did it yesterday, but in other games it wasn't quite as disciplined.

JW: I noticed at the start of the Test matches the Sri Lankans seemed to expend a lot more energy beating the ball about than the Australians or South Africans, but with no better results, as they hit the ball straight to a fielder so often, whereas the others waited their time and placed the ball into the gaps more skilfully. But by the end of the tour the Sri Lankans seemed to be placing the ball better and conserving their energy, with better results!

MG: Definitely. They're very good players of spin and pace, but particularly spin, where they place the ball superbly well. They know where to place it and what balls they can hit for four and what they can push for one. It's very hard setting fields for our spinners, but our spinners did quite a good job in the end. Grant is only a part-timer, but Andy Whit in keeping them down to four an over in his spells did well. It was disciplined bowling that really put the pressure on them and went a long way towards our winning that game yesterday.

JW: The target was similar to that we were set in Bulawayo, but our opening pair went off much more quickly. Was that a deliberate policy, or was it that with Sri Lanka missing three of their top bowlers it was a bit easier?

MG: Well, maybe it was little easier, to be honest, but we scored 80 in 15 overs in Harare with their top bowlers there. It wasn't so much that it was easier, because they are all good bowlers and are all so disciplined, but the biggest problem was that we lost it in the middle in Bulawayo. Here we didn't do that; we kept rotating the strike, and that was a big factor in keeping the momentum going.

JW: We came close to it though, with four wickets going down quickly, mostly to soft dismissals.

MG: They were bad dismissals: Andy misjudged that university, Stuey got a top edge, Grant misjudged his run - very soft. Alistair shouldn't have played his shot after Grant had taken ten or so off the over. Fortunately we then consolidated; hopefully the guys will learn as they're all experienced players. Andy in particular is normally a good runner between wickets, but unfortunately he misjudged it and there was a good bit of fielding.

JW: It looked as if some of the guys were getting nervy when that happened.

MG: Yes, definitely; it was repercussions of Bulawayo, but I was always confident that if we just batted normally we would get there. But Guy and I said, "Look, let's just be patient here because if we have wickets in hand in the last ten overs we'll do this easily; we don't need to panic." Guy was taking his time, so there was a little but of pressure, but I had full faith in him that he would come through because he's a very good striker of the ball and I was confident that I could rotate the strike. It was one of those situations where we just had to bat the overs and not lose too many wickets, and fortunately we did it with about four overs to go. We didn't have to do anything extravagant; we just hit the bad ball and pushed the odd single.

JW: The first four you hit was a pull that went close to being a catch, by the looks.

MG: Yes, it was. I was just too early on the shot, and I had to wait for it, and I tried to place it, but fortunately it went on to the fielder so quickly that he missed it.

JW: How were the different Sri Lankan bowlers doing at that stage?

MG: Gallage was bowling shortish, especially to Grant, because he's a brilliant front-foot player, and off the back foot he doesn't hit as many boundaries, but he can still rotate the strike. Maybe Gallage kept the same length to me, but I'm more of a back-foot player than Grant is, so I got a few boundaries away, that relieved the pressure.

The spinners were on at the other end, Chandana and Arnold, and I had no problem rotating the strike against them because it wasn't turning a hell of a lot. But they're good bowlers and we just had to treat them with respect.

JW: Was there any bowler in particular you had to watch out for at that stage?

MG: I think for myself I was Jayasuriya. He fires in that arm ball, and he's normally pretty accurate in keeping it right on your toes, and I think that was the only thing we had to worry about. I was petty confident that Guy and myself could play the pace bowling quite comfortably, especially as the bounce was nice and high.

JW: Guy had a bit of luck with that dropped return catch with Jayasuriya.

MG: That was a quicker ball, and Guy was too early on it; yes, that was good fortune.

I think it's a positive thing for Zimbabwe cricket that we won at least one of these games. They might have rested a couple of their bowlers, but they're all good bowlers and it doesn't matter who you're playing against; when you play for your country it's an honour, and we had to show the public that we could still perform. It was a positive way to go into the new year.

They are a brilliant fielding side and the public don't realise how good they are, how quick they are, and it was good to end on a high note, because we've had a lot of bad publicity. We could have beaten them in this series if we had played well for both halves of the game and played to our full potential as we did yesterday.

JW: Did you manage to enjoy a good relationship with the Sri Lankans off the field?

MG: Yes, on the whole; there were a couple of guys I didn't find very friendly, but I had no problems with them off the field. Whatever happens on the field happens on the field, and it's one of those things, but I just lose respect for some of their players the way they play the game: they don't always play like gentlemen and the way they appeal for everything, when some of them they know themselves are nowhere near being out. [Murray was obviously thinking also of his controversial run-out in the Second Test, although he didn't mention it.] Kaluwitharana we always got on well with, and the same with players like Wickramasinghe, Pushpakumara, Russel Arnold and Chandana.

JW: Anything else you would like to mention?

MG: Just that we have a very good batting coach in Dave Houghton, who is very good technically, and it was nice for the bowlers to have Carl Rackemann. I know John Rennie and Gary Brent, for example, have found he has really helped them out. In the past we didn't really have that, and Heath Streak has been the main guy trying to pass on advice to other pace bowlers such as Pom Mbangwa, Henry and others.

I think it has helped our bowlers a lot to have him here, a bowler who is respected because he's played for Australia and he was a brilliant bowler. I faced him in Australia in the twilight of his career and he was brilliant, a very hard man to get away, and he's mixed in really well with the bowlers and the team in general. It was really nice to have him with us.