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Mukudzei Chingwere, Midlands Bureau
RENOVATIONS at Kwekwe Sports Club are frantically underway to ensure facilities in the Midlands mining town are up to scratch to stage the ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifiers to be hosted by Zimbabwe from March 4-25.

Zimbabwe are hosting the qualifiers with venues spread between Harare, Bulawayo and Kwekwe. However, Kwekwe Sports Club has been recently starved of top tier international matches and the excitement to host international cricket is buzzing in the town.

Kwekwe has hosted a few international matches in the past decade with the highlight being matches where the Zimbabwe A team once hosted Kenya more than five years ago.

But the venue is not starved of top cricket personalities who once used the facilities as their home for some time. Australia legend now Sussex head coach, Jason Gillespie, was coach at Midwest Rhinos.

Midlands Cricket secretary, John Makuwalo, said the venue will be ready to host the qualifiers ahead of time and is optimistic the qualifiers will leave a footprint in the province.

“The venue is getting a facelift so that it will be ready to host international matches and those working at the site are almost done ahead of time of the matches.

“The dressing rooms are being renovated and we are also working on the areas where guests will be sitting, the playing surface is fine but we are also working on it,” said Makuwalo.

“As a province we are happy that we will be hosting the ICC qualifiers, we hope the experience will be helpful in resuscitating cricket in the province.

“We have produced many players before and we want to go back to those good old days which will also help the growth of cricket in the country,” said Makuwalo.

The Herald visited Kwekwe Sports Club where a lot of work is underway including painting the dressing rooms, working on the playing surface and a lot of tents being erected to increase the sitting capacity.

Tomorrow, Kwekwe Sports Club is hosting a warm-up match between Nepal and UAE. On Saturday Hong Kong play against Nepal in another warm-up match.

Qualifiers will come to Kwekwe at the knockout stages on March 15 and 17, which are likely to bring a lot of excitement to the people of Kwekwe and Midlands Province as a whole.