Unhappy days are here again for Zimbabwe

"You are not watching the game?" It was less a question than an astounded admonishment, and it came from a man guarding the gate at a Harare hotel on Tuesday. The game at Queens Sports Club in Bulawayo, he didn't need to say. Between Zimbabwe and Scotland. The game Zimbabwe had to win to clinch the last remaining place in the field for this year's men's World Cup.

That the man on the gate was also not watching the game was not pointed out to him. Doubtless he would soon be up to speed with events in the City of Kings, some 440 kilometres away from the nation's capital. But first he was duty-bound to grant access to the hotel to someone who had had the temerity to nip out to a supermarket when they should have been holed up in their room watching The Game.

At Harare Sports Club big screens beamed the action to a throng that had gathered on a bleak winter's morning. There seemed to be more sunshine in Bulawayo, and it shone on a steadily swelling, already singing and dancing crowd. They had reasons to be cheerful about Zimbabwe's prospects. Craig Ervine had won the toss and fielded, and the Scots had been reduced to 170/7 in the 43rd over; not least because Sean Williams took 3/30 in his first 7.1 overs.

But Michael Leask and Mark Watt put their team back on track for a defendable total with a stand of 46 off 33. Fifty-five runs flowed off the last five overs. Scotland's 234/8 was 14 runs bigger than their effort in the teams' World Cup qualifying match at the same ground in March 2018 - which was tied.

How did Williams feel about that? "I'm not really one to live in the past, I'm looking forward to the future," he said immediately after the innings. "I don't really like to fall backwards. I like to fall forwards. Hopefully today we can do that."

The anxiety caused in the home side's ranks by the Scots' fightback was made plain when Richard Ngarava, who bowled the last over, took animated exception to Joylord Gumbie missing the stumps with an underarm lob that might have resulted in a runout rather than the bye that accrued off the final delivery.

One run matters, especially when you've given away too many. And even if 235 should be well within the range of a team who harbour, in Williams and Sikandar Raza, the tournament's top two run-scorers, who have made four of the 20 centuries we've seen in the competition. But they scored those runs when it mattered less than it did on Tuesday.

"The expectation that we play with and the expectation they play with is entirely different," David Houghton said when he popped up onto our screens during the interval. His words proved prophetic.

Zimbabwe have chased down 291 to beat Nepal and 316 to beat the Netherlands in the past two weeks. But that was against attacks that didn't bristle with Chris Sole and his 150 kilometres an hour lightning strikes, or the nuggety nous of Brandon McMullen - who between them knocked over the top four inside eight overs with only 37 scored. "The best bit of advice I've been given is always bowl as quick as you can," Sole said with a smug smile after the match.

Raza and Ryan Burl shared 54 off 61 and Burl and Wessly Madhevere put on 73 off 74, and Zimbabwe remained on course to haul in the target. But when Madhevere was trapped in front by Watt in the 31st the home side were six down with 71 required. Burl was their last hope, and it took a small miracle to snuff it out.

Having driven Leask through the covers for four and swept him for six off consecutive deliveries, Burl unleashed another sweep. At midwicket, McMullen, hobbled by a tweaked ankle, turned and dashed for all his worth. And stuck up his hands to take the catch with his back turned to the pitch. He was Willie Mays, taker of the most famous catch in baseball history, without a mitt. In the crowd, a young man in a cap stood and wept.

There was no way back from 197/9. The instant the formality of defeat was confirmed, the happy delirium in the stands that has become the anthem of cricket in this country crashed into the saddest of silences. Another man in the crowd, his head wrapped in a Zimbabwe flag, stared balefully into the distance. The camera happened on Williams' wife, Chantelle Williams, who wore a similar look. For them, it seemed, there was no future to fall into. In 2018 Zimbabwe failed to qualify for the World Cup, despite also playing the qualifiers at home, for the first time since they made their inaugural appearance in 1983. Now it's happened again.

"Everybody is gutted," Ervine said. "It would have been nice to put those demons from 2018 to bed. Had we gotten over the line today, people might not have asked about 2018. Unfortunately we didn't and it's another moment a lot of us will live with for a long time."

The result was good for the tournament - one of Scotland or the Netherlands, who clash at the same ground on Thursday, will join fellow qualifiers Sri Lanka in India in October - but catastrophic for the growing number of cricket-minded Zimbabweans.

People like the man guarding the gate. What did he think? How did he feel?