From poverty to plenty: 2025 is a bumper Test year for Zimbabwe like none before

In 2025, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and Pakistan will play five Tests each; Bangladesh six; West Indies seven; South Africa eight; India and England ten each; and Australia 11. Only one other team will play as many matches as the last of those: Zimbabwe.

Despite not being part of the World Test Championship, Zimbabwe have actively sought out Test fixtures, which they see as their responsibility as an ICC Full Member, even if they have no one holding them to that. "I believe that every Full Member must play all three formats. It's part of our eligibility criteria," Tavengwa Mukhulani, Zimbabwe Cricket chairman says. "We are a country that has played over 100 Tests [123 to date] so we are a Test nation."

This staunch commitment has recently been boosted a notch. Since making their Test comeback in 2011, Zimbabwe have played 40 matches in 14 years: an average of just under three Tests a year. In some years, like 2015 and 2019, they did not play any. Before this year, the most Tests they had played in a calendar year since the comeback was six in 2013.

Zimbabwe have already played two home Tests this year, and are due to host six more. They've also played two away, and have another such scheduled in England this month, which is historically significant. It is the first time Zimbabwe will play there since 2004, and the first time they will play against England in any format, since 2007.

That statistic alone says how starved Zimbabwe are of cricket against the top nations. They haven't played a Test against Australia since 2003, against India since 2005, and against neighbours South Africa since 2017. Mukuhlani calls it an "informal segregation", one that "should have no place in sport" because of how it entrenches inequalities.

He wants to see an equal spread of fixtures, in which all Full Member teams play each other. "Every one of the 12 Full Members must be given an opportunity to play against each other in all the three formats. If you look at football, which has grown phenomenally globally, Brazil plays Honduras, England plays Malta. This story that there are those who are playing on one side of the aisle and those playing on [the other] has no place in sport," he says. "We need a bare minimum home-and-away schedule and over and above that, countries can then organise their bilaterals [as] suits their commercial needs."

Mukuhlani is also against a two-tier Test system because he thinks it will leave the smaller nations even further behind. "If you've got a two-tier system, the question is, what do you want to achieve? Do you want to formalise segregation?

"As it is, we are struggling to sell our TV rights because the big boys are not on our FTP, so if you formalise it, what are we going to sell? How do we survive? The biggest question that the cricket world must answer is 'How do you want the smaller nations to survive?' Or do you even want them to survive?"

This question carries more weight when you consider who is asking it. If there is a country that has teetered on the brink of cricketing extinction - apart from Kenya, who have gone from the brink of Test status to not even being in the picture for white-ball World Cups - it's Zimbabwe.

After playing their first Test in 1992, they took part in 83 matches before voluntarily taking a sabbatical, which eventually extended to six years, amid economic and political turmoil in 2005. They have battled a range of financial problems, and an ICC suspension for government interference in 2019, which led to them missing out on qualification for the 2021 T20 World Cup. Since then, they have cleaned up their finances, in particular, and made their annual ICC disbursement of US$13.5 million stretch to fund a five-team domestic system, which includes a first-class competition, the national sides, and to host Tests at $500,000 a pop. This bumper year, hosting Tests will cost them about $4 million.

Those improvements came too late for Zimbabwe to be included in the WTC, and they were told of no pathway for how they might be involved in future. "We don't know why we are not part of the WTC and we don't know the criteria of how the teams in the WTC were picked. Equally, we don't know what we need to do to be in that league," Mukhulani says.

What they do know is that playing Test cricket is a matter of living up to their status and upskilling their cricketers. "If you want to develop cricketers, they must play Test cricket," Mukuhlani says. "By playing Test cricket, we will fix our white-ball problems because players [will be] learning and improving on the basics."

The person who has to oversee that process is head coach Justin Sammons, who was appointed in June last year. In his first month, he oversaw Zimbabwe's first Test in 17 months and first away from home in three years. Immediately, he saw the challenges that would lie ahead. "The big learning was that we were not fit enough," he says. "We had to work on that."

In cool, seamer-friendly conditions in Belfast, Zimbabwe took the game to a fourth day and held the advantage when they Ireland 21 for 5, chasing 158 to win. That they were not able to close out the match from that position is something Sammons put down partly to their lack of familiarity with being in a position of advantage. "A big challenge is that shift in mindset, and that ability to actually want to go and try and win the game, and not wait for the opponent to make a mistake," Sammons says. "We've got to actually back our abilities to go and take the game to the opponent and win it."

Fast-forward nine months and Zimbabwe were in Sylhet, where they took an 82-run first-innings lead and then ended up with 174 runs to chase. They lost seven wickets in the process but held their nerve. The biggest difference between the two matches was how one Zimbabwean bowler, Blessing Muzarabani, performed.

"If I look back to the Test in Ireland last year, and the improvements he's made in the five games that have followed that, it's immense," Sammons says. "In those conditions which really suited him, he didn't quite hit his traps. He hadn't played a Test match for a number of years prior to that as well. In the last four Tests, he's taken two five-fors in Bulawayo, where it's not seamer-friendly, and his control and understanding of how to use his aggression has really come through."

At first glance, it seems Sammons' assessment of Muzarabani's performance in Ireland might be harsh. He bowled 30 overs in that Belfast Test and took five wickets (3 for 53 and 2 for 52). If there is a criticism of his performance, it's that he did not strike with the new ball in Ireland's first innings. Since then, Muzarabani has bowled more than 30 overs in three out of his five Tests and taken 27 wickets at 19.85 including second-innings five-fors in Bulawayo and Sylhet. Some of his progress is down to experience, some of it to the systemic improvements Sammons has been able to implement, given there are more Tests on the horizon - like an athlete-management system to collect data and analytics, helping create an environment of increased professionalism.

Sammons credits the board with "being very supportive" of the team's needs as they play more Tests and believes the results are starting to show, albeit more in isolated individual performances than consistently overall. Other standout individual performers are Brian Bennett, who was schooled in South Africa, and at 21 already has a Test hundred, Test five-for and ODI century to his name; and Wessly Madhevere, who has played five Tests, in one of which he made a second-innings 84, and has made six ODI half-centuries. "Wessly is only 24, so there's a lot of potential and talent within the Zimbabwe system," Sammons says.

It's not just the younger players who benefit from more cricket. At 38, Sean Williams has played international cricket for 20 years but only 19 Tests. If he plays all of Zimbabwe's matches this year, he will play more Tests in 2025 than he did in the last eight years combined - which he describes as "crazy and awesome". Williams finally has the opportunity to build a body of work in the format. He also recognises that it means he has to take care of himself in ways he hasn't before, especially as he has been managing a bulging disc in his lower back. "There's a lot more things I need to do and take way more seriously than I did before," he says. "I feel better every single time I do my recovery, and my training is as simple as you get. I'm putting all my energy into my instincts. My ability has been there for years, it's just about trusting my instincts."

That's why Williams, along with Craig Ervine and Sikandar Raza (both 39) is a player ZC wants to keep around for as long as they can in the longest format: because they can teach the next generation how to trust themselves and their skills. "We have not had that much luxury of getting exposure to playing, so this gives an opportunity for the senior players to spend time at the crease with the youngsters," Mukhulani says. "It's one thing for Sean Williams to sit down with the youngsters and talk, but it's quite different to be at the crease together, batting together. It's good experience for them."

With that experience, Sammons hopes they can "improve to a point where hopefully we can be saying to the powers that be that we deserve a spot in the WTC". It is understood that the WTC structure will continue to be discussed at the ICC's next meetings, including at their AGM in July. In the recent past, the outcomes of these meetings have primarily resulted in decisions that protect the interest of the so-called Big Three (such as the distribution model that raised India's percentage of earnings in 2023) but Mukhulani hopes to push the message that including the smaller Full Members will eventually work to help everyone.

"The moment we do that, we will see an improved performance, financial sustainability in all the members, and possibly even more revenue for ICC. The more teams you have performing better, the better the product for ICC. That's how sport should be anyway."