LIKE most Thursday mornings, the cattle market adjacent to Haslingden Cricket Club was a hive of activity this week.

Local farmers -- still feeling the pinch after the BSE crisis -- pedalled their wares as they continue the fight to make ends meet.

And the irony of the situation greeting his arrival in East Lancashire will not have been lost on new Bentgate pro, Paul Strang.

Back home in Strang's native Zimbabwe, local farmers are currently fighting for their lives -- never mind their livelihoods.

In a battle over land rights, farms have been torched, some occupants butchered and others beaten into a pulp in front of their own families.

The parents of Strang's girlfriend, Barbara, are understandably twitchy.

They own a farm in Mhangura and some of their neighbours have already been targeted.

And the situation could get worse before it gets better.

The Strang family moved over to Zimbabwe in the sixties when Paul's father, Ron, took up a job as a policeman.

Now, they are among 50,000 white Zimbabweans who share their homeland with 11million blacks.

But Paul vociferously disputes the fact the current troubles are about race. "There's always been a land issue.

"You've got 50,000 whites who seem to hold 80 per cent of the farming land and it's a throwback to Colonial times.

"But everyone realises -- including the white farmers -- that reform is necessary.

"They had settled on a way of doing it then the farms ended up in the hands of ministers, production went down, and there was uproar again.

"People suddenly just started taking the land regardless and that's when the problems came.

"But this type of thing always starts around election time.

"It's the first time in 20 years the ruling party have come under serious pressure. So a lot of people are saying they are just trying to muddy the waters and confuse the main issues.

"It's spin-doctoring and I think the situation is going to get worse before it gets better.

"But, though I'm glad to be out of it, I just wish I could go back and vote."

Strang is clearly a deeper thinker than your archetypal sportsman.

Intelligent, articulate and a graduate of Cape Town University, he holds strong political views.

And he knows what he wants from life.

"There's two ways of approaching life. You can use your head or you can't. And if you are intelligent enough to think, but don't bother, then you will come up very short." Now 30, he gave up a promising career with a leading multi-national company to concentrate on channelling his energies into cricket.

But the gamble paid off.

As a promising young leg spinner, he made rapid progress.

And when Zimbabwe became a Test-playing nation, Strang became the country's seventh professional cricketer.

In his 20 Tests so far, he has scored 747 runs at an average of 27.66 and taken 57 wickets at 37.78.

His CV also boasts 81 One-Day internationals, including appearances at two World Cups.

An arm injury has hampered his progress on the international stage in the last 12 months, however.

But now he is hoping a summer with Haslingden in the Lancashire League can put him back on the map.

"This club season is very important to me because I need to get some confidence back after the injury.

"I still have the desire to play for Zimbabwe.

"But I just want to play cricket and, by the end of the season, not even worry about the arm.

"And I'm really looking forward to the summer. "There's a lot of good pros in the league this season and I can't wait to face batsmen like Nathan Astle and Matthew Mott because I have played against them before.

"There's also plenty of quality amongst the bowlers as well, in the likes of Jason Gillespie and Dave Saker.

"I don't know too much about the strength of the amateurs, though."

Strang is the first spin bowling pro at Bentgate since 1973.

By his own admittance, he is not a prodigious spinner of the ball, like fellow 'leggy' Shane Warne.

But, after experiencing English conditions previously in the County Championship with both Kent and Nottinghamshire, he believes he can still leave his mark.

"I don't know what the wickets are like, although I know from my previous experiences of England that, in the first month or so, you don't get much turn or bite," said Strang.

"But you can still do a job.

"I've never been a big turner of the ball, anyway.

"I just, basically, try to get the ball in the right place and attempt to out-think batsmen.

"It's just a bit of variation in flight and working a batsman by finding his weaknesses. "Then you have to back that up with good fielding."

Ironically, however, should his Haslingden team-mates provide that back up in the early part of the season, it could yet result in an international re-call.

Strang has made himself available for one-dayers and could technically be called up for Zimbabwe against England this summer.

"That's a possibility but the chances are very slim."

Whether or not he gets the call, he will still be keeping a close eye on proceedings as his younger brother, Bryan, will be part of the touring party.

"As a nation, we are very much at the bottom of our cycle at the moment.

"I don't think I've seen us play, results-wise, as poorly as we have been recently.

"But I think playing England at the start of the season actually suits our bowling attack because our seam department is not the worst. "The key to success is our batsmen, though.

"Over the last year or so we haven't managed to get the majority of them firing on all cylinders at the same time.

"But I think the people in charge of the game back home are working wonders.

"Zimbabwe has a population of 11 million of which 50,000 are whites and it's them who have traditionally played cricket.

"But they are trying to turn those figures around and there are some good young black cricketers now starting to come through.

"There may even be a couple on this tour."

The sooner the politicians make the same concessions, the better.