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Sports Reporter
TWENTY-TWO Bulawayo primary schools and two guest teams are set to compete in the fourth edition of the Baines Junior Dumisani Mankunzini Winter Cricket Festival scheduled for next month.

The festival has been pencilled in for July 23-24 and Botswana’s Cubs Cricket Academy and Alberton Cricket Club of South Africa will participate as the guest sides.

In an interview yesterday, former national Under-19 and Matabeleland Tuskers leg spin bowler Dumisani Mankunzini said the tournament is getting bigger with each edition and to date 14 teams have confirmed their participation.

The competition had four schools when it started in 2012, eight schools in 2013 and last year’s edition had 12 schools.

Inaugural tournament winners Baines Junior, 2013 victors Milton Junior and defending champions Mtshingwe Primary School of Emakhandeni are among schools that are set to again compete in this year’s winter festival.

Newmansford, Gampu, Greenfield, Nsukamini, Trenance, Josiah Chinamano and Future Stars Academy, comprising players from Petra, Whitestone and Masiyephambili schools, will be hoping to emerge as victors.

“Schools have been supportive to this initiative and we’ve grown from strength to strength with each passing edition. We’ll have 24 teams participating and with 14 already confirmed, I’m certain that by end of the week the remaining 10 schools would have submitted their registration forms,” said Mankunzini.

He said as part of the build-up to the tournament, they had sent qualified cricket coaches to schools to try and ensure that all teams are almost on the same level when the event kicks off.

“Everything is set for the tournament and our coaches are going around schools giving them free training sessions so that we’ve competitive teams battling it out next month. We’ve managed to source T-shirts for participating schools and it’ll be a fun-filled day for the whole family.”

Mankunzini said they had lined up an exhibition game that will feature Matabeleland Tuskers players as well as invited guests such as Babongile Skhonjwa, Ezra “Tshisa” Sibanda, B-Metro editor Limukani Ncube, national team pace bowler Christopher Mpofu, Thabo Mboyi, Matabeleland Tuskers Cricket Franchise area manager Vumi Moyo, Arthur Mpuli, development coaches Trevor Phiri and Christopher Phiri, and Titus Chipare.