Eddo Brandes then produced a stunning spell of 4 for 21, including dismissing Graham Gooch the first ball, to help restrict England to 125 all out and thus give Zimbabwe a shock nine-run victory.

During this era, Zimbabwe also produced such cricketers as Flower's brother Grant, and allrounders Andy Blignaut and Heath Streak (who was later appointed national captain).

Sometime captain and middle-order batsman Alistair Campbell, leg-spinning all-rounder Paul Strang, Eddo Brandes, and pace bowler/opener Neil Johnson were other important contributors for Zimbabwe on the world stage at this time.

In reply, South Africa collapsed to 40 for 6, before Lance Klusener and Shaun Pollock scored half-centuries to reduce the margin of defeat to 48 runs.

Zimbabwean players Andy Flower and fast bowler Henry Olonga wore black armbands, for "mourning the death of democracy" in Zimbabwe.

[18][19] Since the 2003 World Cup, with a succession of Zimbabwe's best players ending their international careers early, a new side began to develop, featuring the likes of Travis Friend, Andy Blignaut, Hamilton Masakadza, Douglas Hondo, Craig Wishart, Ray Price, Sean Ervine, Mark Vermeulen, Tatenda Taibu, Elton Chigumbura, Prosper Utseya, Dougie Marillier, and Barney Rogers.

Whilst not of the same caliber of Streak, Goodwin, and the Flower brothers, this new breed of predominantly multi-disciplined players formed a solid backbone to a competitive, if usually unsuccessful, side.

The series was more memorable for Australian opener Matthew Hayden's innings in the first Test – in which he overcame a back strain to score a then record 380 runs – than for the Zimbabwean performance.

In 2004, captain Heath Streak was sacked by the ZCU (now Zimbabwe Cricket), prompting a walkout by 14 other players in protest against political influence in the team's management and selection policies.

[24] In early 2005, Heath Streak was reinstated into the national side, but the political situation in Zimbabwe involving Operation Murambatsvina disrupted the Zimbabwean team.

By then the team had been further weakened by the departure of the likes of Dougie Marillier, Craig Wishart and Sean Ervine, all of whom retired in protest and expressed disillusionment in the local cricket hierarchy.

This was widely seen due to concern by ZC that the standard of play would be so poor as to be both not worthwhile and potentially harmful to the external image of cricket in Zimbabwe.

As well as player exodus, the main reason for this catastrophic fall in standards was put down to wrangling within Zimbabwe Cricket, where internal politics motivated the removal of the historic provinces and their replacement with revamped, newly designated provincial teams.

In a further harmful incident, ex-player Mark Vermeulen was arrested after attempting to burn down ZC's offices, and successfully destroying the Zimbabwe Cricket Academy's premises.

The players were summoned to meet Ozias Bvute, Zimbabwe Cricket's managing director, a week or so before they were due to set off and given an ultimatum – sign the contract on offer or be removed from the squad.

[29] The specter of continued problems with the ZC board influenced some players to cut their losses and seek to finish their careers abroad: Anthony Ireland accepted a contract to play for Gloucestershire during 2007, while opener Vusi Sibanda also left.

Further heavy defeats by Sri Lanka and Pakistan followed, before a consolation victory over Kenya was achieved in Zimbabwe's final game of the tournament.

His partner Chigumbura scored a brisk 47 and was quite unlucky to miss out on his half-century, bowled by Jacob Oram after he along with Waller had taken the equation below a run a ball.

When Keegan Meth was bowled two balls later for a duck, Waller kept his cool as he marshaled the middle order efficiently, assisted by a six by debutant Natsai Mushangwe, and then enough support by Ray Price brought the scores level.

[47] In June 2012, Zimbabwe beat South Africa in a t20 match of an unofficial triangular T20 tournament where Bangladesh national cricket team also featured.

Zimbabwe won by 9 wickets and clinched the T20 series in front of a full house packed with native Zimbabwean crowd at the Harare Sports Club ground.

[67] Zimbabwe lost their opening game to South Africa, following which they beat the United Arab Emirates before losing to West Indies.

[92] To add injury to insult, several key Zimbabwe players like Sean Williams, Craig Ervine, Vusi Sibanda, Luke Jongwe, Richmond Mutumbami and Tinashe Panyangara were injured before or during the t20 series.

[107] In October, former players Brendan Taylor and Kyle Jarvis returned to the national team after a two-year hiatus to play in the two test match series against the West Indies.

This was followed by a five-ODI series against Pakistan where Zimbabwe - further rattled by the losses of Malcolm Waller, Solomon Mire, and Kyle Jarvis - lost all five games by heavy margins.

2019 began on a bad note for Zimbabwe with Graeme Cremer putting his career on hold[120] and proposed tours of India and Afghanistan being called off.

[121][122] Zimbabwe retained Hamilton Masakadza as skipper for all formats (despite the cricketer having not won a single limited overs match) while Peter Moor was named deputy.

[134] Under new stand-in captain Sean Williams and missing many of their regular players, Zimbabwe toured Singapore to play in a final Tri-Nation Series also involving Nepal.

The second ODI was a closer affair as Donald Tiripano's incredible assault led to them causing a huge upset, but eventually, Zimbabwe lost by 4 runs.

Before adopting the primary colour red for uniforms Zimbabwe wore pastel green in limited overs matches, starting with their 1982 series against Sri Lanka.