Thabo Moyo
IN an interview recently from Kampala, Uganda, former senior men’s cricket mentor Stephen Mangongo told of how shocked, surprised and hurt he was to hear from ZC managing  director, Wilfred Mukondiwa, that he had been relieved of his duties. He was quick to point to his track record as a world beating club coach at Takashinga Cricket Club as well as to his “trailblazing” tenure with the Mountaineers franchise and who could forget how he “thrashed everyone” with the Zimbabwe A Select (really?).

He spoke wistfully of how he took over a team that was “at its lowest” and brought up the profile of black cricket in the country.

That is all fair and good. It is, after all, his entitlement and kudos to the man.

Mangongo then had to spoil a good start by accusing Zimbabwean players and the establishment of not being prepared to accept pearls of cricketing wisdom from him because he was a black, indigenous coach.

Those who have never dealt with the man before would be surprised at this.

However, there are those within the cricket fraternity who would not wink an eyelid at this.

He is known now as a man who does not waver from his chosen track and as a tough man, unprepared to back down even in the face of withering criticism.

Given the thankless nature of the Zimbabwe coaching job, you do need a relatively thick skin to survive in that seat.

It may be argued that the Zimbabwe coaching post is as much a challenge as the Indian, Australian, English and South African gigs, albeit for different reasons.

The assumptions that apply with these other test nations are not necessarily true in Zimbabwe. Our List A cricket is in its infancy at best and it may be reasonably argued that the best talent does not rise through the feeder structures.

Quality coaching does not reach all sections of the playing populace and our players generally have a lower training age than Australian, South African or West Indian players who begin formal training at a comparatively younger biological age.

The majority of the current Zimbabwean senior side began playing organised cricket and attending organised training sessions at approximately the ages of 11 and 13.

Our junior national sides rarely go on tours other than going to compete in the South African inter-provincial competitions, invariably against the lesser tier unions and the odd age group side goes on to play in the junior World Cups.

Never mind the junior sides, the Zimbabwe A rarely gets fixtures in comparison to the other test nations’ feeder teams. I will give the example of the England Lions touring South Africa between January 5 and February 5 in the new year. In this tour, they have one Three Day match versus a South African Invitation XI followed by two Four Day unofficial tests and five unofficial ODIs against the South African A XI. This means that the SA selectors can call upon replacements for the Proteas playing against the West Indies.

Benefits of having such tours include having players on the fringes of full representative selection who are match fit, tested in international conditions and on international wickets, as well as fully attuned to the demands of touring Australasia, the Caribbean, European and African venues.

Even better is that this will happen in lesser pressure situations than jumping straight from franchise level and into the full test sides as has happened with players like PJ Moor and Solomon Mire among others.

It also allows for players who have dropped from first team selection due to injury or loss of form to work their way back into form and confidence. Mangongo’s critics both within the country and without are quick to point to his lack of first class playing experience, let alone having done so at test level.

In my view that should not matter as much as we make out. John Buchanan, arguably one of Australia’s most influential coaches between October 1999 and May 2007 oversaw one of the most dominant generations in sport since Clive Lloyd’s Calypso Kings of the 1970s and 80s.

Buchanan only played state cricket for Queensland in the 1978/79 season and then played club cricket in England for Cheshire for Hyde CC. It is important to note that he never played Test cricket and was undermined by the traditionalists for his preference for using mathematical patterns and statistics to make major selection and tactical decisions.

Mangongo has a unique appreciation of the game, like Buchanan.

He started from the outside going in. One would thus have expected him to at least highlight such flaws in the national structure.

Our players are nowhere near prepared for the rigours of touring and are even less prepared to handle the psychological, technical and tactical demands of the code.

He, as a man who had been at the bottom of the food chain, has a better understanding of the difficulties and barriers to entry faced by the No Name Brand child who learned to spin on a dusty pot-holed road in Gwabalanda and attended a No Name Brand School in Matabeleland North.

However, that is not evident from that exit interview with Eddie Chikamhi.

Zimbabwe is more than prepared to have that indigenous black coach.

Such a coach must be principally prepared to look at new ways of getting the best attainable results with the minimal amount of ability at his disposal. Zimbabwe also needs that administrator who is prepared to acknowledge that the hands-off approach ZC is taking in schools coaching is not working and needs to change, with the best coaches being sent to where the most enthusiastic children are, equipped with adequate resources and availed more respectable remuneration, so that they are not lost to the system.

Success is not unattainable. It will come if we are honest with each other and stop bringing up the race card to explain away our own deficiencies. It does not matter what race you are, or what your background is.

Success comes when the little things that matter are done correctly over and over again.    l Thabo Moyo holds a BSc(Hons) in Sport Science and Coaching from the National University of Science and Technology and coaches cricket and rugby at school level.

You Might Also Like

Comments