Blignaut's big finish

The fourth day's play was very much like a rendition of Nessun Dorma by Pavarotti. It began with a long slow period, in tune with much of what had happened before in this Test match. Eventually the tempo quickened, to reach a great crescendo just before the close.

The big finish was the fortuitous hat-trick by Andy Blignaut, who can play like a dream or a drain, often both on the same day. It was fortuitous because the TV replays showed that unfortunately the umpire Neil Mallender had got the final, very difficult, decision wrong - the ball actually came off the top of Mushfiqur Rahman's pad and not his bat on its way through to the keeper. However, all that is now history and the fact is that, barring unexpected intervention from the improving weather, Bangladesh now face an impossible task to draw a match that they looked well capable of saving three hours earlier.

Zimbabwe took 40 minutes, at the only time of the day when the pitch offered any assistance to the bowlers, to wrap up Bangladesh's first innings. Heath Streak was missing with a back spasm, and he was not to bat later, though he did field - but the feeling was that if Zimbabwe's bowlers found it so difficult to take the last Bangladeshi wicket, what hope did they have of bowling out the entire team after they had had a second innings themselves?

Once again Zimbabwe's top order was slow and uncertain when they resumed 110 ahead, although Stuart Carlisle batted well before he ran out his own runner with a call for a quick single. The meat is in the middle: the allrounders yet again did the job, and both Tatenda Taibu and Sean Ervine had the distinction of hitting two half-centuries in the same game.

Ervine's innings was the key. On a pitch where most found driving difficult, he stood tall and laced the ball through the off-side field with his trademark cover-drives, or smashed it back over the bowler's head. He scored 74 off 78 balls - no other batsman in the match had remotely approached a run a ball - before in the interests of his team he holed out on the midwicket boundary and missed the century that might have been his in the first innings. His stature is rapidly increasing as a player of genuine Test class as a batsman who is also a more than useful bowler. Perhaps he will fill a similar role to Jacques Kallis - but he is a more destructive batsman, if not yet as heavy-scoring.

Zimbabwe were able to declare with 14 overs left, and then came the crescendo as Bangladesh plunged from 12 without loss to 14 for 5. Once again God and the umpires proved to be on the side of the big battalions: Shahriar Hossain's lbw decision from Dave Orchard was marginal for height, and Mushfiqur was certainly unlucky to complete Blignaut's hat-trick. In two hours the match had turned around dramatically, and if it is not quite a case of Nessun Dorma for Bangladesh, they will not sleep too easily tonight.