The Sunday News
Dumisani Mankunzini
As our country moves into a new era, I am convinced that it should also be a new era as well for our lovely sport of cricket.
It is high time we had a genuine legacy restored within Zimbabwean cricket. The country needs to go back to its roots of playing night matches, especially when considering that we are hosting World cup qualifiers next year.
Next month, the Zimbabwe cricket team is slated to play a night test match against South Africa’s Proteas. Most cricket matches should be played at night and we need to get our team prepared for that.
It is unfortunate that because our team was previously banned from playing cricket at night, this adversely impacted on our performance as a cricketing nation, as we kept getting night matches away and day matches at home.
The inconsistency that followed made a mockery of the great cricket talent that Zimbabwe is endowed with and hugely contributed to a poor run of form for our national side.
The truth is that our team has played badly under floodlights all these years simply because they are not used to it. Also considering that Zimbabwe is the only cricketing nation that does not have night matches at home, it is a great concern and quite strange.
I am very disappointed that the way the game was run in the past cost Zimbabwe Cricket a lot of things. There are previous circumstances like the England cricket team refusing to play in the country during the 2003 World Cup, which we co-hosted with South Africa.
As a result, Zimbabwe was unfairly given the points. There were also allegations of maladministration and perhaps it is time those accused of wrong doing in the past are made to account for their actions.
Going to the Logan Cup saga, other players, including myself, who participated and won it three years in a row, haven’t been paid, despite making our country proud. This is sad. There were a lot of things done wrongly and unprofessionally and perhaps it’s time all those in the know speak out.
