The Sunday News
Mehluli Sibanda, Senior Sports Reporter
ZIMBABWE Cricket have announced that the country’s domestic cricket season will get underway on 1 December with the four franchise sides to compete in all the three formats of the game.
According to fixtures released by ZC on Wednesday, the domestic action will run until March next year.
Eagles, Mountaineers, Rhinos and Tuskers are the four franchises that will be part of the 2018/19 domestic cricket season after ZC reverted to the old system as part of a restructuring exercise based on a strategic plan.
The plan sees Harare Metropolitan and Mashonaland Central provinces being paired to compete as Eagles. Bulawayo Metropolitan, Matabeleland North and Matabeleland South provinces have been combined to make up the Tuskers franchise. Midlands and Mashonaland West have been reunited under the Rhinos banner, while the fourth franchise, Mountaineers, is made up of Manicaland, Masvingo and Mashonaland East.
In announcing the dates for the new season, ZC said emerging players who made up the national academy side Rising Stars that went on to win last season’s Pro50 Championship will be absorbed into the four franchises this time round.
The List A competition, the Pro50 Championship, will get the season underway on 1 December, with Eagles hosting Tuskers at Harare Sports Club, while Rhinos will be at home to Mountaineers at Kwekwe Sports Club.
Two days later, the first-class contest, the Logan Cup, will commence with the same teams facing each other at the same venues.
After two rounds of both competitions, the franchises will go for the festive season break and return to action on 12 January.
Logan Cup defending champions Mountaineers will host their home matches at Mutare Sports Club, while Tuskers will play theirs at Queens Sports Club in Bulawayo.
A Twenty20 tournament scheduled for March will bring the curtain down on the 2018/19 season. Zimbabwe remain one of the few International Cricket Council Full Members without a vibrant Twenty20 league after the demise of the Stanbic Bank T20, something ZC have to rectify if the Chevrons have to make an impression at the World T20 to be staged in Australia in 2020.
There were no T20 matches in Zimbabwe’s domestic league last season, with the last competition having taken part in Bulawayo in February 2016 ahead of that year’s ICC World T20 in India.
@Mdawini_29
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