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Dave Whatmore

Ngqabutho Moyo Sports Reporter
THE appointment of Dave Whatmore as the new Zimbabwe national team cricket coach has been met with mixed feelings. While some of the country’s cricket fanatics have praised ZC for replacing Steve Mangongo with Whatmore, some seem to believe that the team’s failures are due to the poor leadership at ZC and the untalented crop of players.

One of the cricket fans who identified himself as Outcast on the cric.info website, believes that people in Zimbabwe will regret Mangongo ever being sacked as the national coach.

“Geoff Marsh before and Alan Butcher more recently. There was no value added then and I doubt Dave Whatmore will add any value either. The current crop of players are partly to blame, they can’t play so many international matches and fail to execute some of the basics, am taking the recent Bangladesh tour as a perfect example.

“Dave Whatmore will come and go and the same will remain, at least Mangongo drew in one series against Bangladesh, competed against South Africa, something the West Indies are struggling to achieve and beat Australia in the process. Rest assured, Whatmore will not match any of those feats, in fact I dare say Bangladesh may be itching to tour Zimbabwe next year and Whatmore will be responsible for the first series loss at home against Bangladesh for a very long time. The biggest embarrassment will be that this technical team will be more expensive and more experienced. Soon people will be chanting ‘Bring Back Mangongo,’” said Outcast.

However, former Zimbabwe national team cricket player and cricket commentator in South Africa, Mpumelelo Mbangwa, believes that ZC made a good appointment and if they let Whatmore do his job without interference Zimbabwe will rise to be a good team it used to be.

“It’s a good move by the Zimbabwe Cricket board and honestly no one can dispute Whatmore’s success record, the man is a good developmental coach who is capable of pushing the young players in the national team to their maximum performance.”

Zimbabwe Cricket players representative, Elias Zvimba, is one of the many praising ZC for hiring Whatmore as the Chevrons coach.

“I believe that what the team needs now is a coach who will not act on emotion and verbally attack players in a way that will demotivate the players or affect them mentally and we’ve seen Whatmore pick up a struggling team and turn it to a World Cup winning team,” he said.

Sam Winstone, a cricket fanatic, believes that ZC made a good investment in appointing Whatmore.

“The profile and CV of Dave Whatmore is just too good. He’s a great, high quality coach and a big boost for Zimbabwe having a World Cup winning coach as their head coach, it’s the best high profile signing ZC has ever made. I just hope Zimbabwe extends his contract after the 2015 World Cup. It’s a positive thing that Zimbabwe players will receive training from the Dubai based Academy of Whatmore,” said Winstone.

One of the fans identified as Graham, said Whatmore could produce good results as long as his methodology is not disturbed.

“If Whatmore is seen as the expert he is, and is left to his methodology he’ll do a fine job. During the Marsh and Butcher times, Zimbabwe Cricket was being controlled by outsiders, this has been well documented and is fact. It’s therefore up to ZC to embrace this appointment and let him do his job without disturbance. It’s a last chance for ZC to regain some credibility. Ireland and UAE World Cup matches are critical for Zimbabwe,” wrote Graham.

Meanwhile, Zimbabwe Cricket has confirmed that Mangongo will not be the Under-19s coach but will assist with talent identification.

Former Zimbabwe captain Alistair Campbell was on Saturday appointed as the new managing director of Zimbabwe Cricket replacing Wilfred Mukondiwa, who was re-deployed elsewhere in the organisation.