Zimbabwe Cricket Online Club report

We plan to include regular news from the clubs nationwide. For this issue we were able only to contact Harare clubs, as we are having difficulty in finding correspondents elsewhere.

The Vigne Cup is the Harare club competition, as opposed to the national league which consists of clubs throughout the country.

ALEXANDRA SPORTS CLUB - contributed by cricket manager Jim Watters.

Alex got off to a rather nervy start to the season, missing quite a number of players from last season; in fact, at one of our early net practices virtually all of last season's first-team players were missing. As a result most of our former second-team players are now representing the first.

Last season's captain Darrell Goodwin has been struggling with a knee injury, and it looks likely that he will miss the whole season. Brian Bath has taken over as captain while Gavin Rennie is away. Several youngsters have left us, while Sean Davies and Gary Martin are overseas. Kevin Duers is still very active; he was hoping to play in the second team this year, or perhaps captain the thirds, but we are so short of bowlers that he is playing most of the time in the firsts.

In the national league we won a couple of matches, although losing heavily to Queens, but after that we have done well. We have won all our Vigne Cup matches, and the real challenge comes when we play Old Georgians this coming weekend, as they are also unbeaten. We beat them in the BP Shield match last Saturday, so we can go into the match with confidence.

Both our first and second teams are doing well, but we are rather thin on the ground in the thirds. It has been difficult to keep the season going smoothly with so many breaks for Test matches or one-day internationals, as we don't play when such a fixture takes place in Harare.

There are four players in particular I would like to mention. Firstly we have had good contributions from our two international players, Murray Goodwin and Gavin Rennie; Murray scored an excellent 115 recently against Old Hararians that was a pleasure to watch. Doug Marillier is becoming a regular player in the Zimbabwe Board XI and has also been selected for teams like the President's XI. Finally there is Andy Blignaut; we took him on largely as a bowler as we knew our bowling was rather thin; he has indeed bowled well but also scored a great many runs for us.

HARARE SPORTS CLUB - contributed by cricket manager Gavin Johnston-Robertson.

So far this season we have won about half and lost about half our matches. We are having difficulties with the national teams away so much, but all the clubs face this problem. We have reduced our number of teams by one this season, doing away with our thirds.

The backbone of our team, when available, consists of Trevor Gripper, Stuart Carlisle, Dan Peacock, Mark Vermeulen and several Academy players. We have lost Craig Wishart and Neil Johnson since last season, both to Old Georgians, as well as Andy Blignaut to Alex. On the other hand we now have Gripper and Carlisle back regularly, as they have finished their university training in South Africa.

We feel we now have two good, well-balanced sides on paper, with a good spinner in each, together with our quicks and stock bowlers, and batting in depth. So far, though, they have not played to potential. One unique problem we have is the frequent lack of availability of net practice. ZCU now have a lease on the ground, and when touring sides come they always commandeer the nets and we find ourselves pushed back on our own ground, so it is very difficult to get decent practice as a team.

One major handicap has been the injury suffered by our promising off-spinner and improving batsman Dan Peacock, who fell while fielding for the Zimbabwe Board XI in South Africa and broke a small bone in his leg. He will not be back until probably the New Year. Next weekend we are due to play Old Hararians, and are resigned to doing without Gripper, playing in the Test in Bulawayo, and possibly Carlisle as well.

OLD GEORGIANS - contributed by captain Gus Mackay.

In the national league we won two matches and lost to Universals, while we have won all three of our games in the Vigne Cup. Only one defeat all season to date is a very encouraging record for a club that was in danger of packing up last season.

The team is coming back together again, and when Neil Johnson and Grant Flower are available we have a very strong side. Craig Evans is back in the runs, while Craig Wishart has joined us and is available again after his knee operation. The rest of the team is built around myself, our wicket-keeper Bruce Moore-Gordon, Dan Rowett and promising youngsters Brad McCoun, Travis Friend, Stephen Wright and Barney Rogers. They have all chipped in; the bowlers have bowled well and the batsmen have performed soundly.

We are greatly indebted to the sponsorship of Ray-ban Sunglasses, who have put money into our clothing and general maintenance of the ground, including the renovation of our scoreboard. There have been some complaints about our pitch, mainly from Universals, but we do not see it as a major problem. For the recent match too much grass was left on the pitch, and our problem is that when it is all taken off the pitch crumbles, as happened against Universals.

We are looking forward confidently to our match against Alex at the weekend, as they are top of the Vigne Cup table, but we are also unbeaten.

OLD HARARIANS - contributed by Paul Strang

We made a promising start to the season, but have just recently been knocked out of the BP Shield competition. It's going to be hard to emulate last season's performances when we won three of the four competitions, but we are just continuing to work hard and build for the future.

One of our problems has been that we have a number of promising youngsters who are playing so well that they have been selected for the Zimbabwe Board XI and President's XI teams, while Bryan Strang has been recalled to the national side. We were actually missing five of our batsmen when we lost the BP Shield match, most of them playing Sri Lanka in Bulawayo. We are happy with the recognition for them, of course, and will just have to contend with their absences. There are good opportunities for our second eleven players to show their worth.

We often miss Trevor Penney, our captain last year, who is coaching and selecting as well as captaining the Zimbabwe Board XI. Our batting is our main problem at the moment; we are always a strong bowling side, and it seems traditional for Old Hararians to be strong in bowlers and all-rounders. We also have the Worcestershire bowler Matthew Rawnsley with us this season; he also does some coaching at the CFX Academy, which he says is good for his game because he learns himself as he coaches.

This season we are developing a more professional structure at Old Hararians, putting more emphasis on fitness and discipline, because we have a number of young players good enough to progress to the national side and we want to give them the best possible start. Trevor Penney, when available, Eddo Brandes and I run the nets at the moment, which is particularly good for me as I have a lot of time on my hands while I'm recovering from injury. So does our captain Gavin Parker when he can, but as he runs a business his time is restricted.

We have a hard-working committee run by Russell Tiffin, and we owe a great deal to unsung heroes like Jean Milne who runs the administration and scores for us.

We have won most of our matches this season, but there have been few outstanding individual performances -- it's been mainly a team effort with everybody chipping in. We work well as a team because we want to make sure our youngsters learn from every match.

UNIVERSALS - contributed by former captain Ali Shah

Universals are having a very difficult season at the moment, as we are fourth in the national league and bottom of the Vigne Cup table. For much of the time we have been able to field basically only a second-league side.

We have more players in the Zimbabwe Board team now, as well as the national side at times, and we frequently miss the services of our leading players, David Mutendera, Everton Matambanadzo, Dion Ebrahim and Trevor Madondo. A major asset to our team has been Darlington Matambanadzo, who is batting in the middle order and averaging over 30. He is enjoying his cricket and batting well, although struggling with the ball. I suspect, though, that he is not ambitious enough to play for Zimbabwe, as he is capable of doing; we recommended him for Mashonaland squad practices at the start of the season but he did not make himself available.

Hitesh Hira is in good form with bat and ball, and currently has a batting average of over 40, but he has not been selected for any representative sides. I have not been as involved in the team myself this season, as I want to give the youngsters a chance and I have a lot of business pressures to contend with.

Everton Matambanadzo is doing a good job as captain, and has promoted himself to opening batsman! He goes in there to have a hit, taking advantage of the fielding restrictions, and has scored a fifty and a couple of useful twenties and thirties. His bowling lacked rhythm at the start of the season and his line was wayward, but he is now beginning to put it together again.