A sorry saga of neglect

While the picture of schools cricket we presented last week gave some reason for cheer, there is less positive news as far as the club game inside Zimbabwe is concerned. The economic and social meltdown, which money and privilege help protect schools from, has ravaged the social game and left it in a parlous state. So bad have things become that even Harare, where the bulk of good-standard club cricket was played, is seriously affected.

One former international cricketer who has given up playing completely, even though he is at an age where he should be at his peak, highlighted the situation. "There used to be at least 76 club grounds countrywide, including country districts cricket, which Zimbabwe Cricket does not recognise any more," he said. "The number of grounds in use has declined since 2003. It only takes a trip out of town to see the old grounds with knee-high grass growing in the outfield. Why are they not being used? Where is all the money going?"

We visited several prestigious club grounds in and around Harare and it was clear that some of them have not staged any cricket this year and probably for longer. The grass was indeed knee-high and the facilities derelict.

The virtual racial purge of the board is reflected in the local leagues. "There is hardly any cricket in either of the Asian clubs here in Harare," one former administrator said. "Both Sunrise and Universals have stopped playing club cricket. Sunrise has a team that participates in Saturday-afternoon friendly cricket, where there are about 12 teams playing. Most of the teams are white players who have stopped playing the league cricket."

The one club that is bucking the trend is Takashinga, which has dominated Harare's club competitions for several years. However, there is widespread anger at its success, which is born not so much of jealousy as a feeling that Takashinga receives preferential treatment. "They are fully funded by ZC as board employees like Steven Mangongo and Givemore Makoni are running this club," one former provincial administrator said. "The club entices all the talented black players, since the perception is that if you play at Takashinga, your chances of being selected for provincials, age-group teams, and ultimately national teams are greater."

The club's links to ZC are undoubted, and the association with Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party is no less evident. Former Zimbabwe coach Geoff Marsh once sent some Takashinga players home for wearing Zanu-PF t-shirts and bandanas. A couple of years ago one newspaper quoted an opponent as saying: "The ZCU makes them a powerful club, because they want them to be powerful. They have some real radicals and that suits some people at the ZCU down to the ground."

This perceived favouritism also puts off players from rival clubs. "Some good guys get frustrated and give up," one player said. "Others leave the country never to return."

There is also the issue of having to make a living in an increasingly fragile economy. As a player pointed out, once club cricketers leave school, "they are left to fend for themselves and they have to get a job immediately to cope with inflation. Half of them end up working and can't afford the time to play unless they get selected immediately and earn what the current players earn. ZC just keeps employing more administration staff, but not enough is done for cricket at grassroots level to support the game."

Outside Harare, the picture is even bleaker. Several people told us that in some areas the game had almost collapsed, and the inability to maintain grounds was making it harder for clubs to keep going. With inflation out of control, most clubs cannot import parts for tractors and mowers, so outfields cannot be cut. Basic equipment is also getting scarcer. One club secretary in Matabeleland said that games had been cancelled because there were no balls available. At some clubs the net facilities are unusable because the matting that covers the concrete base has worn out and there is no money to replace it.

One player from Bulawayo, who is among the lucky 20 per cent of Zimbabweans that has a job, admitted that "getting a bat and a pair of pads is out of the reach of even those of us that do work". He added that the only way his club survived was because "the lucky ones that have equipment share it with the rest of us".

"The standard has gone down drastically over the last few years," another Bulawayo cricketer shrugged. "Most of the teams don't practise ... they just meet on Sunday, and as long as they can raise 11 people, they play a game."

Looking at the club matches that do take place, it is evident that in some areas the game is maintained because there are enough schoolchildren to ensure that teams take the field with enough players. "The boys who should be groomed through the school system are the ones now trying to sustain the league," a Manicaland cricketer said. "They have been forced to join the few 'big guys' left to get a league going. I think schoolboys provide just about 80 per cent of players in the league right now."

Furthermore, the few good older players outside Harare head to the capital, since that represents their best chance of being recognised, which in turn further weakens the local standard.

Clearly, it is hard to see how many of the clubs that have survived so far will still be here this time next year. The financial pressure is worsening by the day, the local currency is valueless, and the social situation is such that cricket is becoming an irrelevance.

In fairness to Zimbabwe Cricket, even with the funding it receives from the ICC it cannot hope to do enough to maintain all the club sides. However, that is not to paper over the fact that it seems that it is actually doing nothing in some areas. For every Takashinga there are dozens of clubs that will die from neglect. The board should be providing basic equipment and balls, but to its shame it does not appear to be doing even that.

The depressing feeling is that it might already be too late. And when grassroots cricket dies, the decay is sure to permeate all the way to the top very quickly.