ZIMBABWE Cricket (ZC) is promoting this one-day series with a question: how often do you get the chance to watch boys become men? The implication is clear. Officials have drawn a line under the dispute with Heath Streak and his fellow “rebels” and intend to return to the Test arena in the new year with something close to the team that will face England tomorrow.

Sunday marked the equivalent of Year Zero. It was Zimbabwe’s first match since the governing body changed its name from the Zimbabwe Cricket Union and introduced a new logo symbolising a ball, stumps, the field and the national bird. The speech delivered at the launch of the new logo by Peter Chingoka, the ZC chairman, has been reproduced in full in the programme for the four matches.

“Our dreams and horizons have changed,” Chingoka said. “The union needs a new corporate identity that proudly captures and shows off its beliefs. The wisdom of the Dakota Indians of the United States, passed from generation to generation, says that when you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.”

Evocative words, but others wonder if the problem lies with rider instead of beast. In the absence of Streak, alongside such experienced and proven campaigners as Stuart Carlisle, Ray Price and Grant Flower, just where in the present team is the equivalent of the wise Dakota Indian to pass down knowledge to the likes of Elton Chigumbura or Chris Mpofu? According to Alistair Campbell, a former Zimbabwe captain, the team desperately needs guidance on the pitch. “People are not there to tell them how to do things properly,” he said. “I first started at 18 and I had people around me like David Houghton, Andy Pycroft and Eddo Brandes to help me on and off the field. In any organisation you need experience.”

The opening over of the ICC Champions Trophy match between England and Zimbabwe at Edgbaston in September illustrated the point. “When Tinashe Panyangara bowled those seven wides, not once did a guy come over and give him any encouragement,” Campbell said. “Nobody had the experience to know what to do. There is ability, but the absence of leadership is my biggest concern.

“If Heath returned, that would be ideal. There is a big rumour mill here and I have heard that people are trying to get him back. But I am fearful. Heath helped a bit with Matabeleland, but Zimbabwe Cricket stopped it because they did not want him coaching. That is just being petty. With the new logo, it looks like they might have made a new start.”

Phil Simmons, the former West Indies all-rounder, coaches the Zimbabwe team, while Kevin Curran, born too early to have played Test cricket for Zimbabwe, runs the academy. There is a development programme, with scholarships available to cricket-playing schools. Campbell does his bit by coaching the six to eight-year-olds at Lilfordia Junior School in Harare, a multiracial establishment, with six non-white players in the first XI. Yet Campbell has had to endure accusations of racism.

“When you have given a lot of time and cash to underdeveloped areas, it is annoying to hear things that are not true,” he said. “I gave Stuart Matsikinyeri his first bat, I have given bowlers their first pairs of boots and I have given kit to coaches. I have done this to get talented coloured kids started.”

The latest frustration concerns a fundraising cricket event on Saturday involving junior teams and former first-class players, which was organised to raise money for a school bus. The day before, the pro-Government Herald newspaper suggested that the event was being sponsored by the British media, in an attempt to antagonise war veterans into a response to engineer bad publicity. About 700 spectators still turned out and Campbell’s father put the record straight in a letter published yesterday.

• Morgan Tsvangirai, the Opposition leader, was critical of England’s decision to go ahead with the tour, claiming that it gave “legitimacy” to Robert Mugabe, the President. Unfortunately, “the English cricket tour (will) to all intents and purposes . . . give credibility to a regime which has been condemned internationally,” he said.