Friday Kasteni

Friday Kasteni is a left-handed aggressive top-order batsman with a fine technique who came into the limelight in April 2005 when at the age of 16 he scored an unbeaten century on his first-class debut for Midlands in a Logan Cup match at Kwekwe Sports Club. He is also good behind the stumps and played in that match as a wicketkeeper. He played like a veteran in that match to finish unbeaten on exactly 100. Kasteni was drafted into the Zimbabwe Under-19 team that took part in the Afro-Asia tournament in India late 2005. He made it into Zimbabwe Under-19 side that went to the 2006 Under-19 World Cup held in Sri Lanka, played in all Zimbabwe's five matches as they reached the last eight of that event.

In July 2006, Kasteni was drafted into the Zimbabwe A side that took on Bangladesh A in a series of three first-class matches and five limited-overs matches. He played two of the three one-day matches for Zimbabwe A against South Africa A and looked promising but only had a top score of just 22. He was drafted into the Zimbabwe squad to play against Bangladesh, made his debut in the last match of the series, scoring 9. The Zimbabwe selectors had already been impressed by his performance for Zimbabwe A and see him as player for the future, hence he was the only surprise when Zimbabwe named their final 15 member squad for the World Cup. He bowls left arm spin but does not turn the ball and South African Justin Kemp recently clubbed him for two huge sixes at Queens Sports Club, one of them, which fell out of the ground.
Steven Price February 2007