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Brandon Moyo, [email protected]

ZIMBABWE Emerging head coach, Steve Mangongo, who also leads the Zimbabwe Cricket High Performance Programme, believes that the two-format series against South Africa Emerging that gets underway at Queens Sports Club today is a crucial point for the sport in the country.

Mangongo said, with the series, Zimbabwe is entering a crucial stage where they need to have a wide pool of players to feed the national team and move the game forward.

Zimbabwe Emerging and South Africa Emerging are scheduled to play two four-day games and three one-day games, all taking place at Queens Sports Club. 

“This is a very critical period of cricket in Zimbabwe where Zimbabwe Cricket are looking to move the game forward, but you can’t move the game forward without players, so you can see that we have a Test team in Ireland, we have got Zimbabwe A in England and we have got a Zimbabwe Emerging side taking on South Africa. Zimbabwe Emerging is the future,” said Mangongo.

Zimbabwe Emerging team is made up of players who have had a dance with international cricket, representing the Chevrons in different formats. The team has the likes of Brandon Mavuta, Innocent Kaia, Nicholas Welch, Carl Mumba and Takudzwanashe Kaitano who all have played international cricket before.

Some of the players found the going tough in international cricket and have since fallen out of favour with the selectors. However, Mangongo believes that this is their redemption ticket and they should grab it with both hands.

“Every player goes through a dip in form and there’s always a need and a platform to rehabilitate them, resuscitate their form and get back, so we have players like Nick Welch, Carl Mumba, these guys have played at a higher level and they need to get their game right, so it is a series like this that help to get these guys back and hopefully they will take the opportunity,” said Mangongo.

The two teams began their preparations on Tuesday, having arrived in Bulawayo on Monday and with Zimbabwe naming a fairly stronger side, South Africa Emerging head coach Malibongwe Maketa is expecting a difficult test for his team that also has some exciting talent.

Maketa said another test for his boys will be the need to quickly adapt.

“We are expecting a very tight series, with two good teams, conditions will be really good and so, from that point of view we know it’s going to be quite tough and we are looking forward to our players being tested in this environment.

“What has been good for us is that at home we managed to get a fair number of good preparations before we got here. We would like to have a little bit more time to acclimatise for our players to be exposed to the different conditions but it is not to be but it becomes a nice challenge for our players to really adapt quickly into different conditions,” said Maketa.

Today’s match is scheduled to start at 10am and all matches are free of charge. Fans have been called in to come in numbers. The second four-dayer is scheduled for August 7 to 10. —@brandon_malvin