| Sri Lankans in Zimbabwe 2004 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
 |
 | ||
| Zimbabwe | Sri Lanka | ||
| Dates | 20 April 2004 – 17 May 2004 | ||
| Captains | Tatenda Taibu |
Marvan Atapattu Mahela Jayawardene (4th ODI) | |
| Test series | |||
| Result | Sri Lanka won the 2-match series 2–0 | ||
| Most runs | Dion Ebrahim (115) | Marvan Atapattu (419) | |
| Most wickets | Tinashe Panyangara (4) | Muttiah Muralitharan (14) | |
| Player of the series | Marvan Atapattu (Sri Lanka) | ||
| One Day International series | |||
| Results | Sri Lanka won the 5-match series 5–0 | ||
| Most runs | Tatenda Taibu (169) | Kumar Sangakkara (136) | |
| Most wickets | Tawanda Mupariwa (4) | Muttiah Muralitharan (10) | |
| Player of the series | Tatenda Taibu (Zimbabwe) | ||
The Sri Lanka national cricket team toured Zimbabwe in April and May 2004 to play 2 Test matches and 5 Limited Overs Internationals.[1] The next time Zimbabwe played Sri Lanka in a Test match was in October 2016.[2]
The series was preceded by a massive crisis rocking Zimbabwe cricket, with captain Heath Streak sacked and dropped from the team for criticising the Zimbabwe Cricket Union (ZCU) and several of its policies, including the quota system for non-white cricketers and politicisation of the sport among others.[3] Subsequently, thirteen leading Zimbabwean cricketers, all of them white, rebelled and made themselves unavailable for selection in protest against the treatment meted out to Streak by the ZCU.[4] As a result, a second-string side led by wicketkeeper Tatenda Taibu and comprising mostly black cricketers was selected to face Sri Lanka.[4] The side proved to be clearly uncompetitive as the Lankans whitewashed them in both the ODIs and Tests by margins of 5-0 and 2-0 respectively, winning all matches by heavy margins and winning both Tests by an innings.
Due to the shambolic performance by the Zimbabweans, the ZCU scrapped all Test matches involving Zimbabwe for the rest of the year.[5] The series marked the start of the downfall for Zimbabwe cricket which continues to this day.[6][7]
- ^ CricketArchive – tour itinerary Archived 6 November 2012 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved on 14 December 2010.
- ^ "Herath set for captaincy debut in Zimbabwe's 100th Test". ESPNcricinfo.com. Retrieved 28 October 2016.
- ^ Heath Streak was loved, and he knew it
- ^ a b Zimbabwe hit by players' rebellion
- ^ Zimbabwe Agrees to Play No More Test Cricket Matches in 2004 - 2004-06-10
- ^ Zimbabwe's decade of hurt
- ^ Zimbabwe fails to qualify for T20 World Cup as African nation’s sad downfall continues