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Ellina Mhlanga Sports Reporter

WITH a number of the Mighty Warriors senior struggling with injuries, coach Shadreck Mlauzi is looking at broadening his selection base to avoid a situation where the technical team could be limited to a few experienced players.Zimbabwe had their first preparatory match for the Africa Women Cup of Nations on Tuesday against Egypt, whom they will meet again at the tournament in Cameroon.

The Mighty Warriors won 2-1 with several new players starting in that game.

“The objective is to continuously broaden the player base given that we have a number of our players who appear now to have chronic injuries. Unless those chronic injuries are attended to we still need to increase the player base,” said Mlauzi.

“So we can only do that by giving these players international exposure, playing time of which eventually when you come to competitive matches they can always come in and fit in those shoes.”

Some of the players that have been affected include striker, Rudo Neshamba, who played a crucial role in powering the team to their Olympic debut.

Neshamba has a knee injury and defender Lynnett Mutokuto and forward Erina Jeke have also been struggling with injuries.

Captain Felistas Muzongondi has a persistent thigh problem.

“Of course we have given them time to recover. We will see how it goes if they go under the knife and maybe recover in time for the Afcon. There is always room for us to rope them in.

“We saw at the Olympics they were really struggling but because we lacked experience we had to take those risks because of the sacrifices they had given us as well.

“But now it’s time for them to recover because we are saying look these are friendlies we want to work out on other combinations as well,” said Mlauzi.

His assistant Sithethelelwe “Kwinji 15” Sibanda said if they can cast their net wider there will be no room for complacency by the players.

“What we want to do now, we want to create a broader base of selection so that anytime we know maybe we have 40 capable players who are experienced to play in any tournament. And that experience can only come when they play these friendly matches.

“We don’t want a situation where maybe people will know that the first choice goalkeeper is so and so, these are the players.

“But we just want a larger base where we can really select from so that it creates a lot of competition and when we play a match our performance is up there because there is no complacency, everyone knows there is competition,” said Sibanda.

Some of the players that made their debut appearance for the team include forwards Maud Mafuruse and Tonderai Masango, who powered the team to a 2-1 victory.