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Sikhumbuzo Moyo, Senior Sports Reporter
ZIMBABWE Cricket (ZC) has named 35-year-old Hamilton Masakadza as the senior national team captain for all three formats of the game.

The appointment was confirmed by ZC in a statement yesterday.

“Hamilton Masakadza has been appointed as Zimbabwe senior men’s national cricket team captain for all three formats of the game for the 2019/20 season,” read the ZC statement.

He will be deputised by Peter Joseph Moor in all three formats, while Dilip Chouhan has been named as the men’s national cricket teams’ manager, which include the Chevrons, Zimbabwe A and Zimbabwe Under-19.

Walter Chawaguta, Prosper Utseya and Kenyon Ziehl make up the Zimbabwe National Selection Panel, with Chawaguta remaining convener of selectors.

Masakadza made his international debut almost two decades ago and has never looked back.

He was still a schoolboy at Churchill High School in Harare when he set the record of being the youngest batsman ever to score a century on his Test debut, at 17 years and 254 days.

According to respected cricket website ESPNcricinfo, Masakadza scored a composed 119 batting at No 3 against West Indies in the 2000-01 season.

Earlier in the same year, he had not only become the youngest Zimbabwean ever to score a first-class century, but also the first black player in Zimbabwe to do so, which was a watershed moment in the country’s history.

A year later he put his professional cricket career on hold to study a three-year course at the University of the Free State in South Africa.

Although an agreement was reached that he would still be available for Zimbabwe if required, he could not maintain his form playing against club opposition in South Africa and the national selectors initially decided to await his return to the country.

But the rebel crisis led to his early recall in the one-dayers against England where he struggled before registering his maiden ODI fifty in the final game.

His return to the Test match team brought mixed results, but he was Zimbabwe’s best batsman, technically, on their tour of South Africa, where he showed an application lacking in his team mates.

Masakadza entered the peak of his career after turning 30, and was finally rewarded with his first trip to the World Cup in 2015.