Cricket: Sprawling Bulawayo hosts the Black Caps

"So, what have you been up to?" Lou Vincent asked a lurking journalist as he trundled his kit coffin across the outfield after the Black Caps' optional training session at the Bulawayo Athletic Club on Friday.

There was desperation in his tone, a plea to be told about something - anything - he could do to make his remaining days in Bulawayo ooze by a little faster.

However, the reply he received failed to satisfy that pressing need. "Lots of running," said the reporter, and with a disappointed, "Uh-huh," Vincent sauntered off into the afternoon haze. All around him nothing moved.

Bulawayo is many things - 'the City of Kings' according to the local public relations office; 'the place of killing' in the words of a literal translation from the Ndebele language; a sleepy sprawl along streets wide enough to enable wagons pulled by a full span of 16 oxen to turn around with ease in times of yore; a place where the smiles of the locals are invariably wider than those streets, despite the obvious hardship.

Here, church bells toll on weekday afternoons for no apparent reason. Perhaps because, at some level, it is always Sunday in Bulawayo.

What Bulawayo is not is exciting. At least not to a bunch of young men from the other side of the world who are wary, sometimes pathetically so, of venturing out of the first-world cocoon that envelopes their cricket tour.

However, some of them did do so on Thursday, when Heath Streak took them on a trip to his family's game farm - an hour's drive into the hinterland. By all accounts a fine time was had by all - no one was shot, robbed or infected with a dread disease.

Most importantly, the excursion filled several hours that would have otherwise have been drearily empty for the players.

The second test against Zimbabwe was decided on Wednesday, two days ahead of schedule, which left eight days of limbo. The New Zealanders have and will spend much of that time at the Bon Journee, a restaurant near their hotel where the menu features a picture of the Eiffel Tower motif but the food is Portuguese. Spicy peri-peri chicken is the house speciality, the espresso is real and the beer is cheap and cold.

'The Bon', to quote the locals who brood over their lagers there, is liberally sprinkled with Black Caps at most times of the day and evening, and the owners must be pinching themselves at the burgeoning trade. Dinner for four, with drinks, is a snip at around $Z1.3 million.

"See you at the Bon," the reporter said before Vincent melted into the shadows of Bulawayo Athletic Club.

All there was to be heard in reply was the low growl of the team bus.

- NZPA