Zimbabwe Schools - Christian Brothers College, Bulawayo

We expect to have a reasonable team, and as long as those coming up remember that they have to adjust to a higher level of cricket than they have played in the past, I think some of them will do well. I always believe in bringing youngsters up for the Prince Edward festival in August, the top players in the Under-16 side, to give them a taste of cricket at a higher level, and I do the same when we go down for the CBC schools festival in South Africa later in the year. In this way we maintain the continuity from one year to the next. But with cricket I never make a forecast; I will tell you what the result is when the last ball is bowled!

Among our leading players, I would expect Charles Coventry to shine on the batting side. I think the fact that he was able to go down south for the Coca-Cola Week, even though he wasn't originally picked, because of the injury to Mike Munson, gave him more experience. We have a young fast bowler Matthew Townshend, son of former national player Derrick Townshend, who will be going into Lower Sixth this year, who is promising, with a good action; he just has to adjust his mind-set and I am sure he will take the wickets he is capable of. He has always bowled without a great deal of luck, bowling balls over the top of the stumps or suffering from snicks over the slip cordon, and dropped catches.

I will miss the first three matches of the season with the Under-19 team in Sri Lanka. We always play friendlies against generally the same schools, although since I've taken over I've always tried to get fixtures against the Harare schools as well, to add to the experience of the boys - St John's, St George's, Prince Edward, and we played Watershed for the first time last year.