Campbell: "Non-whites will rule Zim cricket soon" (1 Jan 1998)

Thursday 01, January 1998

"Non-whites will rule Zim cricket soon"

By SA'ADI THAWFEEQ

The inclusion of three non-whites in the Zimbabwe squad to Sri Lanka on merit is an indication that it won't be long before the natural talent of the African plays a dominating role in their national teams.

"The future of Zimbabwe cricket lies with the non-whites," said Zimbabwe captain Alistair Campbell, who has three promising young non-white fast bowlers, all aged 21 in his team.

Henry Olonga, Everton Matambanadzo and Mpumelo Mbangwa represent the future of Zimbabwe cricket. There presence in the national team is just the identity the 14 1/2 million non-whites (out of a population of 15 million) in Zimbabwe need to use as role models, to enable cricket gain an ascedency over the country's national sport, football.

"In another four or five years, Zimbabwe will have an all non-white team," predicted Campbell.

Quite recently, Zimbabwe put in place a massive and successful plan to take cricket to the non-whites. Full-time paid coaches employed to promote the game in schools have done a remarkable job. They have introduced many thousands of non-white youngsters to the game and over 2,000 of them are now playing in regular competitions. Within two years they expect to double this number.

Further, victories against England when Zimbabwe made a clean sweep of the 3-match one-day series, and 1-all draw (1 tie) with New Zealand, has given the game a great boost, and it is now accepted by all communities.

On the other side of the coin, Zimbabwe's cricketing fortunes are also on the up and up with their most experienced international cricketer Dave Houghton retiring from competitive cricket to concentrate in helping his country raise their status as a Test nation.

"Dave is a very good coach. Ever since he took over, our cricket has gone through a major shake up. We have gone from strength to strength," said Campbell.

"In our first six years, we won three one-day matches. In our seventh year we won 50 percent of our matches, 11 wins and two tied matches out of 24. That's a huge improvement in the past 12 months," said Houghton, who took over as full-time Zimbabwe coach in the three-nation President's Cup tournament in Kenya, which Zimbabwe won convincingly (Kenya and Bangladesh were the other countries). Prior to that, Houghton was player cum coach for a short while.

"I hope the improvement will be taken into the Tests also. We haven't lost a series in the last 12 months, but we aren't winning yet. I believe that you have to form a base first and become unbeatable at home before trying to win," he said.

Houghton is also the director of coaching in Zimbabwe and will head the Cricket Academy which the Zimbabwe Cricket Union will inaugurate in May 1998 (Sri Lanka Cricket Board and Sri Lanka Cricket Foundation, please take note).

Source :: Daily News (https://www.lanka.net)