Grant Flower's one-day record is impressive

Grant has lived in his brother's shadow for most of his career, particularly as Andy has been able to transform himself from doughty fighter to world class batsman, with a Test average of 55.

In one-day cricket, however, Grant's average of 33.8 is in fact marginally better than his brother's.

As well as having scored twice as many one-day centuries (four) he has managed five scores in the nineties compared to Andy's two.

And in Tests, though Andy leads the way with 11 centuries, Grant can take pride that three of his hundreds have been over 150, the best of them 201 not out against Pakistan.

As for his 84 not out in Sydney in the 1991 World Cup, it came at a time when England seemed unbeatable.

He alone realised that the SCG pitch was not one for strokemakers, allowing himself 143 balls for his runs whilst his teammates seemed hell-bent on setting England a stiff target.

England, unbeaten in the competition thus far, could barely conceive that Zimbabwe could defend 205 - but they did so by 13 runs.

Andy tends to steal more of the limelight

In one-day internationals, Grant averages less than 30 against only two opponents, Australia and New Zealand, whereas Andy's average dips below that mark against five.

It would be tempting to assume that Grant has had success in one-day internationals because he has more often than not opened and therefore has been allowed more time to build an innings.

In 117 of his 162 matches he has indeed gone in first, but in the 25 innings he has had at No 5, he has averaged 37.

Likes number six

And in 13 innings at No 6, he has bettered that by almost twenty runs, despite his second-ball stumping off Jeremy Snape in that position during the first one-dayer against England.

Unassuming in looks, and a Zimbabwean country mile away from his brother's stature at Test level, it would easy to underestimate Grant.

But it was not always so.

Though Andy, older by two years and eight months, made his one-day debut in 1991/92, a year before his brother, the right-handed Grant was initially regarded as the better prospect.

Indeed, that famous World Cup victory against England represented Grant's 20th one-day international at a time when Andy had played just eight.

More confidence needed

His only drawback seemed to be lack of faith in his abilities.

A fluent attacking batsman, it was too often the turgid, almost fearful Grant that was seen on the international stage.

"When I started off, I was very limited in my strokeplay," he once said. "I had just two or three shots that I was prepared to play."

It was in fact not his strokeplay that was limited, rather that he lacked confidence that he had more strokes in his locker.

As for Grant the left-arm spinner - the good news is that he has been good enough (or put another way negative enough) to have bowled in 108 matches.

'Chucking' cloud

The bad news is that he was once called for "chucking" during a Test match.

More accurately, he was called three times in one over by that well-known policeman against throwers in cricket Darrell Hair.

After being called a third time, Andy put an arm around his brother and removed him from the attack, asking Gavin Rennie to complete the over.

Once again big brother had cast his shadow and once again it was the unconfident, somewhat wounded Grant that stuck in people's minds.