IF you had asked any average Zimbabwe cricket fan if they knew someone by the name of Takudzwanashe Kaitano before the start of the Test match against Bangladesh, only a handful would have answered yes.
No one could begrudge them for not knowing Zimbabwe’s latest find because he was down the pecking order of the potential openers once a position fell vacant.
He does not have an excellent first-class record as an opener but did well in the Logan Cup to warrant some attention.
With both regular openers Prince Masvaure and Kevin Kasuza, unable to take to the field for various reasons, Kaitano finally had a chance to prove himself at the highest level.
But after yesterday (Friday), the name Kaitano was the biggest trending name on Zimbabwe Twitter.
Even cricket statisticians from around the globe took a keen interest in the Zimbabwe opener’s innings once he crossed 50.
The Rhinos batsman was a delight to watch for the purist of the game with his compact technique and extraordinary concentration as he wore down the bowlers in an era where batting slowly in Tests is now vilified.
Test cricket allows a batsman to be fast, slow, beautiful and ugly.
We all saw that in Kaitano yesterday, he knew when to swing the bat, take on the fast bowlers and when to bat within himself.
Batting with his Rhinos teammate, Brendan Taylor, allowed Kaitano to be the wall and his captain the enforcer.
Two contrasting styles were on show, Taylor took on the bowlers and dictated where they should bowl to him, scoring an almost run a ball 81. So, in classic Test style batting, Kaitano waited for the bad ball and put it away each time an opportunity presented itself.
The bigger picture before the series was for Zimbabwe to win the one-off Test and move to eight victories over Bangladesh in the red-ball format.
Such small victories like Kaitano’s batting are feats that the success-starved Chevrons supporters will always celebrate.
The former Churchill High School boy did not play an innings that would make the cricketing world sit up and take notice like a Brian Lara one-man trailblazing classic full of attacking flair.
But he did enough to remind Test cricket enthusiasts that the format still allows grinders to succeed.
Friday was not about perceptions on whether Kaitano was too conservative or too slow.
He was batting for his country to get as close as possible to Bangladesh’s first innings total. He was batting for Test cricket in an era T20 dominate conversations. Above all, he was batting to make the opening slot his own.
In international cricket, you usually associate bad luck of the number 87 with the Australians. Still, this time around, it denied a young man across the seas a well-deserved century after he had toiled hard for almost four sessions.
In the post-tea session, Kaitano had batted himself into a position where he could move into fifth gear only to keep going in fourth because he was a few runs from a debut 100.
The debutant tried to make sure that his marathon innings in terms of balls would count for something by scoring big.
Unfortunately, fatigue crept in, and he ended up playing a loose shot edging a Mehidy Hasan delivery to wicketkeeper Liton Das, falling 13 runs short of a Test Match hundred on debut.
He now has the unenviable record of being the 20th person on debut to have faced 300 plus balls, with the other 19 going on to score hundreds.
Two of those 19 centurions are former captains David Houghton and Hamilton Masakadza, who is now the ZC’s Director of Cricket, who was watching from his office positioned above the media centre.
He, however, now holds the record of the highest score by a Zimbabwe Test opener, surpassing the previous record of 82 by Grant Flower against India in 1992.
To put his herculean effort into perspective, the 10 Zimbabwe batsmen faced a combined total of 360 balls that is 49 more balls than what Kaitano faced.
Simply put, he faced 52 overs of the 111.5 that Bangladesh bowled.
Kaitano’s innings comes to a couple of days after Hashim Amla scored 37 not out from 278 balls to force a draw for Surrey against Hampshire in the county championship in England.
Playing the anchor role requires a sound technique, guile and lots of patience. In this innings, he did all the donkey work but failed to get partners down the order who could cash in on all the hard work.
As what could have been, Zimbabwe will have to bat like Kaitano in their second innings if they entertain any hopes of saving the match.
Kaitano will rest after taking lots of liquid, knowing that towards the end of day four, he will be called upon again to play another marathon innings to try and save his team some blushes.
