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Eddie Chikamhi

Senior Sports Reporter

ZIMBABWE Cricket will kick-start preparations for their international calendar for 2021 with the domestic T20 cricket tournament that is scheduled to begin in Harare next Monday.

The tournament features the country’s five franchise teams – Tuskers, Mountaineers, Eagles, Southern Rocks and Rhinos – and will also be used as a selection platform ahead of the national team’s first international tour which gets underway in February.

Zimbabwe’s first international engagement for 2021 is an away assignment against Afghanistan, which consists of two Tests and three T20Is in February and March. 

ZC spokesperson Darlington Majonga said yesterday the domestic T20 tournament will be played in a bio-secure bubble.

“We will kick-start the year with the domestic T20 tournament which begins on January 4 in Harare. We are quite cognizant of the threat posed by the coronavirus pandemic to sport this year and as a result this tournament will be played in a bio-secure bubble. 

“We have done the same with the Logan Cup competition in our efforts to minimize the risk of the spread of the disease. 

“So the players will be tested this weekend and those that test negative will go in a controlled environment in preparation for the games. The franchises have already started their own preparations,” said Majonga.

All the matches are set to be played in Harare with Harare Sports Club and Old Hararians set to host the bubble. The Logan Cup tournament is also set to resume after the T20 tournament.

National selectors will use the T20 tournament to pick the squad for the three Twenty20 Internationals against Afghanistan in February.

Majonga said the two series will take place either in India or the United Arab Emirates. Afghanistan have been hosting their home matches on these neutral venues because of the security concerns in their country. 

“The Afghanistan tour involves Test matches and T20s so this domestic T20 tournament, as well as the first class competition Logan Cup that is still underway will serve us well in terms of our preparations for the tour.

“The actual dates and venues for the tour are still to be confirmed. It’s something that is still being discussed. As you know Afghanistan at this point are still not able to host their international matches on home soil because of security concerns. So we are looking at those two venues,” he said.

Meanwhile, Zimbabwean cricketers were conspicuous by their absence on the list of luminaries honoured by the International Cricket Council for excelling in the last decade.

India’s Virat Kohli was the biggest winner in the men’’s category with two prestigious individual honours, a day after becoming the only player to be in all three ICC Men’s Teams of the Decade. 

Kohli took home both the Sir Garfield Sobers Award for ICC Male Cricketer of the Decade and the ICC Men’s ODI Cricketer of the Decade.

Kohli’s potential was evident as far back as in 2008, when he led India to a win in the ICC Under-19 World Cup in 2008.

His leadership qualities were evident in the early years of his international career. When India lifted the 2011 ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup — with Kohli playing a vital, underrated role in the final — his words after the game spoke of someone mature beyond their years.

“Tendulkar has carried the burden of the nation for 21 years. It is time we carried him on our shoulders,” a 22-year-old Kohli said then. Over the next decade, he took that responsibility upon himself, as he became India’s leading batsman across formats.

He has 43 ODI centuries and within sight of Tendulkar’s record of 49 hundreds in the format. The standout feature of his limited-overs career has been his ability in the chase, scoring 35 centuries in ODI victories, 22 of them coming in successful run-chases. He was also Player of the Tournament in the 2014 and 2016 ICC T20 World Cups.

In the longer format, he has been India’s most successful captain, with 33 Test victories including a memorable series win in Australia in 2018-19. He has Test hundreds in seven of the eight countries he has played in with six double hundreds in 2016 and 2017 combined, a golden period in his long-format career.