BRIAN LARA’S golf experience solved an unprecedented cricketing puzzle here yesterday.

The motorised heavy roller at the Harare Sports Club was completing its obligatory roll of the pitch prior to the third day of the first Test when it crushed a stray ball from Zimbabwe’s outfield warm-up.

Although the driver quickly realised the problem, he could not stop in time to prevent pressing a third of the ball into the turf on the ideal length at the southern end for a bowler to one of the five West Indian left-handers.

It left a large indentation and set a difficult question for match referee Gundappa Vishwanath, the former Indian batsman, and umpires Simon Taufel and Billy Bowden.

“This was something I’d never seen before in all my years in cricket,” Vishwanath said. “We know if there is a leak in the covers and water has got on the pitch, we have to wait for it to try, but this was differerent.”

He explained that since Zimbabwe had batted for almost two days on the pitch prepared for the match that had not been tampered with, he and the umpires asked Lara if he was prepared for his team to bat if the area could be satisfactorily repaired.

“Brian said he would be agreeable, providing he could be assured the pitch would be in the same condition,” the match referee said..

“We were wondering just what could be done when Brian suggested we use the instrument they use in golf to make green holes to gouge the offending area out,” he added.

“He felt it could then be replaced it with soil taken in the same way from the surrounds of the pitch.”

The Zimbabwean player, Ray Price, nephew of the golfer, Nick Price, was taking pictures of the incident in the middle at the time and volunteered to collect the instrument, known as an “auger”, from the nearby Harare Sports Club.

With Lara supervising, umpires and match referee in attendance and head groundsman Robin Brown, a former Zimbabwe player, in charge, the operation proceeded.

“Brian suggested we do a dummy run on the side of the pitch to ensure that the soil around the dent wouldn’t crack when we tried to remove it,” Vishwanath said.

Once that was settled, the offending area - the size of a golf hole - was carefully removed and soil from behind the stumps extracted, coated in mud to help it bind and inserted instead.

It was then knocked into place with a mallet and briefly rolled with the light roller.

“The whole thing was a complete success,” Vishwanath said. “It was

remarkable that, when it was finished, you could hardly notice where the original spot was and we could start as early as we did (at 11.30 am, two hours after the scheduled start).”

“Without Brian’s suggestion, that would not have been possible,” he added.