Meet the Manicaland squad

Manicaland biographical details:

Brent, Gary Bazil - b Chinhoyi, 13.1.1976 RHB RMF

Burmester, Mark Greville - b Durban (South Africa), 24.1.1968 RHB RM

Denyer, Terence Gerald - b Mutare, 26.5.1981 RHB LB

Ferreira, Neil Robert - b Harare, 3.6.1979 LHB OB WK

Gada, Patrick Kudzayi - b Harare, 5.5.1978 RHB RM

James, Brian William - b Mutare, 21.10.1982 LHB RM

Lawson, Stephen Paul - b Mutare, 17.12.1968 RHB OB

Matsikenyeri, Stuart - b Harare, 3.5.1983 RHB OB

Soma,Leon James - b Mutare, 25.2.1982 RHB RFM

Sparrow, Jason Wayne - b Chipinge, 7.2.1974 RHB RM

Yatras, Dion - b Mutare, 26.8.1969 RHB RM

Neil Ferreira - Neil is an ex-Academy player, left-hand opening bat and wicket-keeper. He played with the Academy last year and is now back in Mutare coaching. We will hopefully finish our local academy, our centre of excellence, in the next two weeks, and he will be coaching there, taking top players from our development programme around the schools, along with Patrick Gada.

Patrick Gada - Patrick was also one of the Academy guys, now stationed in Mutare: a right-hand bat who will be coaching along with Neil at the Academy. He batted very well down in Kwekwe last weekend and they put on a good opening stand into the seventies.

Mark Burmester - Burmie is an international player, captaining the team, a guy of experience. As soon as he got down to Mutare four years ago he tried to get cricket back on its feet, and since then he and I have worked in tandem. I have taken over the chairmanship but Burmie has been on the committee ever since and done a lot, except for an eighteen-month absence when he was in Harare. We are going from strength to strength now, and cricket in Manicaland is starting to take off again.

Steve Lawson - Steve has also been playing for years, and has played for Manicaland before in the Logan Cup, in years gone by. He's been around for a long time: a right-hand bat and off-spinner. He has all the shots but he is one of these confidence players; once he gets in he can be devastating, a very powerful strokeplayer.

Gary Brent - Gary is a national player. He scored a good 25 for us in Kwekwe last weekend, but didn't do much for us yesterday, so hopefully he will do better for us in the second innings.

Stuart Matsikenyeri - Stuart is a very talented youngster who won a scholarship at Churchill. Andy Flower approached us and asked us if we could find a place for him in our Logan Cup squad because Andy felt he was good enough to play at this level. He's a very good little batsman; yesterday he got out to a blinder of a catch, but he's definitely one for the future, one to keep an eye on.

Dion Yatras - Dion is another who has played Logan Cup cricket for Manicaland in years gone by. He is into his thirties and feels he is getting a bit old for this level now, that his reactions are a bit slow, but he is a very powerful batsman, not very pretty to look at, but he can hit the ball really hard - a very explosive lower-order batsman. He's made some good scores in the past. He is very much a dibbly-dobbler type of bowler - very little pace but if the batsmen try to take him on he invariably gets wickets. He's very hard to get away; he puts it on the spot and moves it around off the seam a bit.

Terry Denyer - Terry opens the batting for Hillcrest High School, one of the youngsters we're trying to bring through. He's a very good leg-spin bowler and actually a very good bat who's made some good scores for us in the national league. He's a very stoic sort of batsman - no expansive shots, but just gets on with the job, occupies the crease and gets on with scoring runs. He's a guy to watch for the future as well.

Leon Soma - Leon is a very talented batsman, I think, and I really do rate him, as we saw yesterday with some of the shots he played. He unfortunately tries sometimes to do too much or too little - he will either attack or just sit there and go out. He lacks confidence, both in his bowling and his batting, something I'm sure will come with experience, as he's very young and still has a lot to learn. He has a very straight bat when he wants to use it as well.

Brian James - Young Brian is another Hillcrest first-team player, a left-hand bat who can bowl quite nicely as well, a bit of seam. He's played a lot of cricket this year for our second team in the national league with some good results. His batting has let him down, but I have seen him make runs in our local league in Mutare, a couple of fifties, so he can bat. But I think he's a little overawed by the big occasion and is rather too nervous when he goes in to bat.

Jason Sparrow - Jason is basically a bowler and can't really bat that much. He's only come back into cricket recently. He loves his cricket and captains the second eleven in the national league.

Next week we hope to have Guy Whittall back for us after his knee injury - he won't be bowling, and possibly Kenyon Ziehl. Ken didn't want to come up to Harare with the situation as it is at the moment, not wanting to leave the farm for five days. He hasn't had any war veterans camping there at the moment, but he doesn't want to take the risk.