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Eddie Chikamhi Sports Reporter
NATIONAL cricket captain Brendan Taylor is happy with the commitment made by Zimbabwe Cricket to pay the players their outstanding salaries and match fees as the team regroups at Harare Sports Club today to resume preparations for the ICC T20 World Cup.
The national team skipper and the technical side led by Andy Waller met yesterday and drafted the training programme for their preparations for the ICC T20 World Cup scheduled for next month.

Taylor told The Herald that the players were pleased with the payment arrangements made last week and were now looking to invest their energies, during the next five weeks, to preparing for the T20 cricket extravaganza.

“We are happy everything seems to be falling into place now. It was unfortunate what we were going through but ZC have given guarantees that the outstanding dues will be paid this month.

“All the players are fairly confident with the development.
“We will now start our preparations for the World Cup tomorrow (today) and we hope to give our best. We have a month or so to prepare and I am sure we will be able to get things done.

“As an individual, and the other players as well, I have been putting in hard work in the last few months obviously knowing that the World Cup is coming,” said Taylor.

Players from the franchise and national teams had been on strike over non-payment of salaries and outstanding allowances which led to the interruption of the domestic league fixtures.

But following a meeting with ZC chairman Peter Chingoka and managing director Wilfred Mukondiwa last Friday, the players and their representative Eliah Zvimba were satisfied with the promises made by the management and agreed to play ball.

The ZC chairman told the meeting that arrangements have been put in place to pay all the outstanding salaries and match fees within the next week.

The domestic game, which has been in limbo since December, is now expected to resume next Monday with the T20 tournament at the Harare Sports Club.

The tournament will help the technical team look at the players for the ICC T20 World Cup.
National team assistant coach Steve Mangongo yesterday expressed his relief with the resumption of the game.
“We are happy that all the problems that had affected us are now water under the bridge.

“We have met as the technical team and have done our training programme for the World Cup preparations.
“We will start tomorrow (today) with physical fitness training and fielding drills and see how we progress,” said Mangongo. Zimbabwe last played international cricket last September when they hosted Pakistan and with the domestic fixtures having to be cancelled since the start of the strike in December, the players are terribly short of match practice ahead of the World Cup, which gets underway on March 16 in Bangladesh.

Zimbabwe also missed great opportunities in their preparations when they cancelled proposed tours by Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and South Africa due to the challenges that were facing the domestic game.

Mangongo acknowledged the setback but remained hopeful the team will make up for the time lost.
“It’s not all gloom and doom as it may appear because it’s not that we are starting from scratch.

“We are mindful that we have lost a lot of time which we needed to be preparing at our franchises but the good thing is that we are dealing with a mature group of people.

“Basically, we will recommend to the selectors to reduce the squad down to 20 as quickly as possible so that we concentrate in detail with the players that we are sure will be travelling.

“These are experienced guys whom I believe were not just seated at home. These guys have been training on their own as individuals knowing that one day the impasse will be resolved,” said Mangongo.