By Henry Olonga Former Zimbabwe cricketer

Zimbabwe did not help themselves at Chester-le-Street by dropping key catches in the England innings.

If they had caught Anthony McGrath and Alec Stewart when they had the chance they might have been able to limit the damage and keep England down to 300.

In view of the fact we batted badly in our first innings it might have been a little more manageable from a psychological point of view.

We were competitive up until about tea on day one and after that we let it slip. Ray Price dropped Anthony McGrath in the deep when the batsman was on 32 - he went on to make 81.

I think we will be better suited to the one-day scene Heath Streak Zimbabwe captain looks ahead

And of course Stewart was missed by Sean Ervine at slip.

He had also dropped a catch at Lord's - Mark Butcher, who went on to make a big hundred.

However I have seen Ervine take some great catches in the past so bad luck to him.

Friday was a batting disaster. The problem with Zimbabwe batsmen is their techniques are often found wanting.

A lot of the batsmen are undone because they have a faltering defence - seven lbws means they can't play a forward defensive shot.

This all happened on a pretty flat wicket where the ball wasn't seaming.

Travis Friend hit an unbeaten 65 in the second innings

It was good intelligent bowling from the England bowlers who bowled full and straight but the Zimbabwean batsmen just kept on planting their front foot and not playing the ball with their bats.

The reason for this lack of technique is two-fold. First, we play on slow low wickets at home where we don't need to move our feet too much.

Second, we face inferior bowling and when you do that you get errors and bad habits creeping into your technique.

You don't notice it at the time because you are plundering those bowlers and making big scores and the coaches don't notice what's wrong with your technique either.

But then theses techniques are tested by decent bowlers and the errors suddenly reveal themselves.

On the last day, we saw Travis Friend batting well. He has scored 81 in a Test match and 91 in a one-day game so the guy's got ability.

He can bat - he also bowls, but he insists on bowling half-trackers all the time.

Confidence

Zimbabwe's all-rounders can take some confidence from the second innings batting performance and I see hope for them in the one-day competition.

It's a young side, they will have a lot of energy and they have got good balance.

The problem is about responsibility with all the all-rounders. Who takes responsibility with the bat, who takes responsibility with the ball?

That kind of attitude does not happen in an Australian side where they only pick five bowlers.