Baseball coach hopes for series reschedule

Innocent Kurira, Sports Reporter
ZIMBABWE Under-18 baseball coach Shepherd Sibanda is hoping that the South African Provincial Baseball Series gets rescheduled to a later date after it was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The inter-provincial tournament had initially been scheduled for March 22-29 in Cape Town and the national Under-18 team was invited to be part of the series. This was also the first time that Zimbabwe had assembled an Under-18 baseball side.

The Baseball Association of Zimbabwe organised three training camps for the team held at Hamilton High School in anticipation of the competition before all sporting events were frozen because of the coronavirus outbreak.

“Our tournament was postponed until further notice. It was happening all over the world, so we had to cancel as well. Everyone is now waiting for this phase to pass and we will then take it from there,” said Sibanda.

“As a team we were ready for the competition. I am hoping that when everything dies down the event will be rescheduled. For now we are just waiting for things to return to normal just like everyone else.”

The national junior side was meant to face South African provincial sides at the annual baseball event.

South Africa play elite baseball, which Zimbabwe is moving towards, and this tournament was set to provide them with an opportunity to measure their level on the international stage.

The South African provincial sides are strong because of high-performance academies they have and the tournament was going to provide a crucial learning curve for the Zimbabwe team.