Chronicle Editor
Eddie Chikamhi, Harare Bureau
FORMER Zimbabwe all-rounder Sean Ervine has no regrets how his cricket career panned out but his major worry has been that he could not stay long enough to play alongside his brother Craig in the national team.
Ervine, who is arguably one of the best cricket talents lost to Zimbabwe, walked away from international cricket at a tender age of 21 years and spent the bulk of his career playing county cricket for Hampshire in England.
Speaking during a cricket interview with Dean at Stumps, Ervine said he would have loved to emulate the Flower brothers, Andy and Grant, who had an amazing combination between the stumps and made Zimbabwe a competitive side in the 1990s and early 2000s.
“It would have been great. It was such a shame it never happened but it’s good to see Craig doing so well for Zimbabwe,” said Ervine.
Ervine retired in 2004 at the height of the problems that besieged the game of cricket in the first decade of the millennium. Six years later his younger brother Craig, made a late entrance onto the scene in international cricket. Craig has since grown to become one of the players the Chevrons depend on.
The older Ervine, who almost returned to Zimbabwe ahead of the 2011 World Cup, revealed how a communication breakdown with his club Hampshire thwarted the move after he was named in the Zimbabwe squad.
“I went to see Alistair Campbell (who was in charge at ZC then) and he said look, would you begin to come back but I told him I still had a year on my contract with Hampshire.
“Obviously I need to go back and talk to them about it. I would love to come back and play for Zimbabwe. It was a time Zimbabwe just sort of started to pick up and just the thought of playing alongside Craig was probably one of the main reasons (to come back) really, to be honest.
“Alistair said fine go back and talk to Hampshire and then let me know. So we agreed don’t mention anything, don’t release my name in any squad because I need to talk to Hampshire first.
“And a couple of days later I had a phone call from Hampshire to say ‘what hell is going on here? I see your name in the 30-man squad for Zim.’”
“They were fuming but at the same time I could absolutely understand from Campbell’s position because he had to release the 30-men squad by a certain deadline for the ICC. Otherwise I wouldn’t be included.
“It was just one of those things. If he had told me I could have rang Hampshire a bit earlier and say look this is what is going to be happening so don’t get a shock. But it was just unfortunate,” said Ervine.
Ervine eventually retired in 2018 and took up golf. Speaking during the Dean at Stumps podcast which is available on Apple podcasts, Spotify and Google, Ervine said he had hoped to wrap up his career in Zimbabwe colours but it never turned out that way.
“A couple of years later, (Heath) Streak got involved and BT (Brendan Taylor) got back and Kyle Jarvis came back. The guys were like telling me, ‘listen you need to come back.’
“Obviously I was still playing well at the time and I thought maybe I will go back and finish off my career there but in never really sort of panned out that way,” he said.
Ervine only competed in five Test matches for Zimbabwe, but in his 42 ODIs he notched a solitary career international century against India in 2004, and he also took 50 wickets for his nation across both formats.
In a first-class career that spanned 229 matches, he recorded 22 centuries and a whopping 57 half-centuries at an average of 36.15, and took 280 wickets with his slow-to-medium right-arm bowling style. Ervine batted left-handed.
He said ditching international cricket was a difficult decision for him which he made with tears literally flowing down his cheeks.
“It was still going to be a huge decision to walk away from international cricket, absolutely, especially when it’s something that you have worked your whole life to try and achieve.
“The whole consensus was to try and stick together as a group but I just couldn’t see it going anywhere and I wanted to progress my cricket so I drafted up a letter, which I think I still got actually.”
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