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Tavengwa Mukuhlani

Shingi Mugabe Sports Reporter
NEW Zimbabwe Cricket chairman Tavengwa Mukuhlani want the association to go back to basics and turn on a new leaf that is development driven. Mukuhlani met with members of the local media for the first time since his executive was elected into office and the ZC boss outlined that his administration would put more emphasis on development as part of efforts to revive the game and ensure its long term sustainability.

The new ZC chairman said although they would take a development-driven approach, they would not rush into making drastic changes in the way the game has been run. “We are a new administration, chosen for our strategic views and principles. But there will not be change for change’s sake. We will continue with what works. We will discontinue what time has proved to be a failure. We will review what we have concerns over and, based on the findings, amend or terminate.

“We will put cricket first. And putting cricket first means starting from the beginning. That beginning is development. No one is born a cricketer and so we need to develop them. “We will work on the grassroots, age-groups up to Under-19, clubs and provincial structures so that we have continuous throughput for the senior national teams.

“We need national teams that are ranked high enough on the ICC tables so that we automatically qualify for global tournaments but then the higher you want your structure to be, the stronger you must make your foundation, otherwise the whole thing will just crumble. “And so cricket first means respect for the production line: input, processing and then output,’’ Mukuhlani said.

The new Zimbabwe cricket chairman, Tavengwa Mukuhlani, has the daunting task of giving Zimbabwe cricket a facelift and he says his administration is development driven. Going back to the drawing board Mukuhlani indicated that his administration will going back to the basic fundamentals that make a cricketer.

Mukuhlani acknowledged that ZC had been neglecting developmental projects and focusing more on the national team “Our administration is development driven; we are going back to the basics the early days that produced cricketers in Zimbabwe, the very basic fundamentals of developing a cricketer.

“We are not looking out to come and manage a winning Zimbabwean cricket team which we have not built we have to put effort and sweat to make sure that come four to five years from today when Hamilton has retired there is another Hamilton in the making not only one in Under-13 but various levels of development who can replace him that’s our focus.

“Many years ago Zimbabwe cricket actually put in place a development structure that has seen the current national team players we currently see playing, that has obviously been eroded with time partly because of the economic downturn, partly because maybe we moved the eye of the ball. “The structures are there the resources are there and the processes to do that are in place what we need is to ignite and start the process afresh so that we get back to the basics were we are involved in Under-13 selections, were we are involved in having provincial Under-13 and Under-19 selections and then they graduate into the Zimbabwe Under-19 the Zimbabwe A and eventually the national team.

“It’s a process that’s in place its only that for one reason or the other we have not been following it up for the reasons that I have mentioned, if you go around places like Takashinga the nets are in a bad shape, if you go to Emakandeni we have not been able to drill a borehole so the place is not usable if you go to Churchill today which was one of the schools that was producing a lot of the talent we have today the state of equipment and the facilities you can’t train a cricketer there

“We need to revisit the very basic building blocks of developing a cricketer which I believe there is infrastructure in the country but we need to focus. Everyone is concerned to see the national team winning which is good but you must have a source were you get the cricketers and that is where we want to go back to, the very basics and grassroots,” Mukuhlani said

The ZC boss also assured the national that franchise cricket would be back on track after it experienced some problems. “We are going to do a whole review of our systems so that we get back to having club cricket played, we get to have provincial cricket played we get to have franchise cricket played.

“We will have an eight-club competition which would be like the Zimbabwe premier league were the various clubs playing in the national leagues will qualify into that elite club we will review and have franchise cricket again and we intend on having the vine cup back on track again and the Logan cup.

“Somehow because of the economic conditions we have tended to focus on the national team. We need to get back to the drawing board and start with the basic elements that leads to the national team. “So you will see club cricket and you will see franchise cricket,” he said. Mukuhlani said his administration would not allow racism to rear its ugly head in cricket.

“Issues such as racism have no place on our agenda and instead of allowing them to side-track us from the game, will be dealt with as soon as they are raised – without fear or favour of who the complainant or the accused is’’.