THE Zimbabwe national cricket team captain Stuart Carlisle believes that the just-ended tour of India produced a lot of positives despite the fact that the team lost both the Test and one-day series.

Zimbabwe suffered a series whitewash in the two-match Test series and lost the five-match one-day series 3-2 after taking a 2-1 lead.

"Although we lost 2-0 in the Test we had a very good fight. We lost the one-day series 3-2 as well but I think there were lots of positives that came out of the tour.

"With the one-dayers we are still struggling with the opening position with Alistair Campbell and we've got to work on that.

"Alistair had three good innings but he needs to get bigger scores. He needs to start getting hundreds now," said Carlisle.

He also praised young wicketkeeper Tatenda Taibu and Douglas Hondo for their exploits under difficult conditions in the sub-continent.

Taibu featured in all the matches while Hondo joined the team for the one-day series and played three of the five matches.

"Tatenda Taibu, I thought that he kept very well. He's got good energy. I know he had one or two mistakes but it's very hard to keep in India. I think he had some great catches and that one great stumping.

"Dougie Hondo came back to the team and had good performances. He was consistent, he bowled really well and in the last game I thought he bowled the best."

Carlisle said that the Test series could have been different had Zimbabwe travelled with two natural spinners.

The team had Raymond Price as the only spin bowler and he took 10 of the 20 Indian wickets to fall while the two Indian spinners Harbhajan Singh and Anil Kumble took 26 of the 34 Zimbabwean wickets to fall.

"I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that if we had two spinners in the Test series we would have done better.

"But it's not our fault or the selectors' because the other spinners we have were all injured.

"In future if we get another spinner to go on those tours it will definitely make a very big difference to our performance."

Despite Douglas Marillier's outstanding knock of an unbeaten 56 off 24 balls that led Zimbabwe to a stunning one-wicket win over India in the opening match, Carlisle said that the young all-rounder was not advised to play his famous "Dougie shot".

"No I don't advise him to continue playing that shot. Actually I spoke to him just after that game, Geoff Marsh spoke to him and I think Kevin Curran also spoke to him as well.

"That kind of innings will only come off when we are chasing, say 19 runs an over.

"What I told him is that he is good enough a player to bat normally. But in the next four matches after that he didn't make any runs at all.

"Every first or second over he tried to do something like give himself room. I was a bit disappointed by that," said Carlisle.

The rest of the team returned home on Friday while national coach Geoff Marsh stayed behind in his home country Australia and is expected in the country on April 2.