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Brandon Moyo, Sports Reporter

TUSKERS captain, Ainsley Ndlovu is excited to play Southern Rocks in the Pro50 Championship at home. 

Bulawayo Athletic Club is the venue when the two teams collide in back to back 50 over match, the first today and the second on Sunday. 

Coming back to play at home after a long time, Tuskers captain Ainsley Ndlovu told Chronicle Sport that his team is happy to play at home and promised that they will give the matches their best for the fans.

“It’s been long since we played at home and it’s always nice playing in front of our home fans, the boys are pretty excited for this Friday and Sunday,” said Ndlovu.

The left arm spinner is delighted to be playing in front of the home crowd. 

“We are all looking forward to playing our best cricket for our home fans.”

Today’s match will be followed by another one on Sunday at the same venue and the lads from Bulawayo will be looking at completing another double as they did over rivals, Alliance Health Eagles in Harare last week.

Sitting on top of the league standings with two wins, Tuskers won the first match by 43 runs courtesy of a clinical bowling performance and a half century by Alvin Chiradza. In the second match batters stepped up to put a competitive total, with Milton Shumba and Chiradza scoring half centuries.

The bowlers were equal to the task as well in the second match to successfully defend 269, courtesy of a Sheunopa Musekwa master class after he registered figures of 4/48 in 8.3 overs and was supported by Ernest Masuku and Shumba who took two wickets each.

The double fixtures were however moved from the usual venue, Queens Sports Club to Bulawayo Athletic Club as Queens is undergoing renovations where the pitch is being redone to give it more bounce. 

It is however, expected to be up and running soon.

Having completed the double over rivals, Eagles, despite being known as slow starters, Ndlovu believes they are on the right path but will however take games as they come.

“We have always been known for being slow starters but it was good to see the boys get on with it from the first game. However it’s only two games done now and we’re looking to take it step by step as we go and build up from the good start we had,” said Ndlovu.

With 20 points from a possible 20, Tuskers remain the only unbeaten team so far in the season with Mountaineers who have not yet played a match. The captain however believes it is still too early to be talking about potentially winning the title.

“It’s still early to make such statements but it’s definitely something we are working towards and we just want to focus on us as a group playing good positive brand of white ball cricket and the rest should take care of itself,” he said.

With fans not having watched their home team play for some time, Ndlovu urged them to come out in numbers and support them and also promised they will give it their all in the field of play across the two matches.

“We definitely appreciate them all the time and we promise to leave everything out there this weekend,” said Ndlovu.

After the back-to-back fixtures against Southern Rock, Tuskers will make a trip down to Mutare to face Mountaineers on October 13 and 15. – Follow on Twitter @brandon_malvin