Zimbabwe: Future of local cricket unclear (8 October 1998 )

8 October 1998

Future of local cricket unclear

The Zimbabwe Independent

The on-going cricket tour of India to Zimbabwe has sent tongues wagging on the future of the country as a Test playing nation. Zimbabwe lost the two opening one-day bashers heavily to India last weekend before winning the final match on Wednesday.

Detractors of the sport have already started to spot faults which they say threaten the future of the game. Some have gone to the extent of drawing parallels between the acute decline that has relegated rugby to the backseat of the sport and what is in store for cricket .

The latest Wisden ratings place Zimbabwe at the bottom of the pile on the nineteam Test ladder. The Zimbabwe cricket administrators have been accused of not trying out new players at the highest level to broaden the player base of the sport. There is evidence that Zimbabwe is still thin on the ground with regards to team selection.

The success of the team has largely been hinged on the experience and talent of veteran batsmen Andrew and Grant Flower, captain Alistair Campbell and seam bowler Heath Streak. The absence of each one of the experienced players has usually impacted negatively on the performance of the team in the Test club.

Grant Flower is unavailable for the current tour and Zimbabwe struggle to find a replacement opener. The long absence of Eddo Brandes has for a long time seen Streak without a world class new ball partner.

Zimbabwe Cricket Union (ZCU) president Peter Chingoka however believes that his executive a coaching department was not ushering cricket onto the path to oblivion.

"I am far from being despondent. I know that we can compete at the highest level and our results compare favourably with other Test nations," said Chingoka.

"We have been around for six years (in Test cricket) and to expect us to be at the very top would be asking for too much," he said.

He said Zimbabwean players were still relatively inexperienced when compared to other players from Australia and India.

"Mohammad Azharuddin has played about 300 one-days and we would like at least three of our top players to be there" he said.

He said the weaker Test playing nations were playing in much fewer tours than the stronger ones, which it found it more attractive to play among themselves. He said the International Cricket Committee was putting in place measures to have equitable tours among the nine nations.

He said the level of sponsorship was also still low when compared to the top playing nations.

The low level of sponsorship has not only had a negative impact on the Test side but has limited the participation in provincial tournaments.

Club leagues and provincial competitions both receive sponsorship worth $2 million, a far cry when compared to the South African one-day competition, which has a lavish sponsorship package worth over R50 million.

Source :: The Zimbabwe Independent (https://www.samara.co.zw/zimin)