Flower heads back to Zimbabwe

Grant Flower is sent packing by Darren Gough in Bulawayo in 1996. He has targeted the return of Test cricket to Zimbabwe

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Essex all-rounder Grant Flower will take up a role as Zimbabwe batting coach at the end of the forthcoming English domestic season.

Flower, 39, the former Zimbabwe international and younger brother of England team director Andy, is due to start his final season in county cricket after signing a one-year deal to play for Essex in 2010.

Flower said: “At the end of this season it will probably signal the end of my playing career and I do not want to have any regrets.

“I start my new role with Zimbabwe in October and have the main objective of helping them reach Test status once again. At the end of this season I aim to complete my Level 4 coaching course.

“I have had five great years at Essex and I am looking forward to my sixth season and want to give everything that I have.

“The Essex fans, the club, staff and players have been brilliant and I am very much looking forward to the season ahead.”

Flower is the latest of a clutch of formerly alienated Zimbabwe players, including Alistair Campbell and Heath Streak, to take up coaching roles with the Zimbabwe Cricket Union.

On Saturday it emerged that Alan Butcher, the former Surrey, Glamorgan and England batsman, was to become Zimbabwe’s new head coach.