The Sunday News
Mehluli Sibanda, Senior Sports Reporter
ON a day Zimbabwe suffered yet another shameful defeat in international cricket, losing the third Twenty20 International to Afghanistan by 35 runs at Harare Sports Club, Zimbabwe Cricket decided to reshuffle the coaching department with Dave Houghton taking over as the Chevrons head coach.
Lalchand Rajput, who was the head coach is now the technical director in the new set up. The changes were ratified by the ZC board which met virtually today (Tuesday).
“Zimbabwe Cricket (ZC) has appointed Dave Houghton as Head Coach of the Zimbabwe Senior Men’s National Team in a reshuffle that sees Lalchand Rajput assuming a new role as Technical Director. The changes were confirmed during a ZC Board meeting held on Tuesday,’’ read the statement from ZC.
The 64-year-old Houghton, a former Zimbabwe captain and coach, is expected to be in place ahead of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Qualifier 2022 that will be staged in the country next month.
As part of the coaching changes, Lance Klusener has already re-joined the technical team as Batting Coach – the former South Africa all-rounder previously served in the same capacity between 2016 and 2018 and was until recently employed as Afghanistan’s head coach. ZC is also finalising the appointment of a new bowling coach to complete the reshuffle.
Commenting on the development, ZC Director of Cricket Hamilton Masakadza said he was confident the changes will boost the technical team and help turn around Zimbabwe’s on-field fortunes.
“We are delighted to be bringing in Dave and we count ourselves fortunate and privileged to be able to appoint such a vastly experienced and highly respected Head Coach at a time we are looking to improve our on-field performances. With Lance having also bounced back as Batting Coach, we believe we now have a formidable technical team that can push for World Cup qualification and ensure our players put in consistently competitive performances,’’ said Masakadza.
He thanked Rajput who has been in charge of the team since 2019, first on an interim basis in May of that year before he was made substantive in August.
“I would also like to thank Lalchand who has been in charge of the team for the past four years, an incredibly challenging period for our cricket. He will continue to be involved in our game as technical director and will provide invaluable support to the team.”
Prior to his appointment, Houghton was doubling up as ZC’s coaching manager and head coach at provincial side Mountaineers. Before that, he was the head of cricket at Derbyshire County Cricket Club in England.
Zimbabwe’s first Test cricket captain, Houghton is one of the best batsman to come out of Zimbabwe. He still holds the record for the highest individual Test score, 266 against Sri Lanka at Queens Sports Club in October 1994.
Meanwhile, the Zimbabwean bowlers did well to restrict Afghanistan to 125/8 in 20 overs but the batsmen were a disappointment, the home team kept to 90/9 in 20 overs. Afghanistan won the T20I series 3-0 after they triumphed by a similar margin in the One Day Internationals.
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