adminBrighton Zhawi – Sports Reporter
THE Zimbabwe senior men’s volleyball team coach Itsanang Abu Basuthu has defended his team selection following the failed Africa Games qualifiers mission in Botswana last week.
The men’s and ladies’ teams both failed to get past the regional qualifiers phase after finishing third and fourth respectively.
Hosts Botswana and Mozambique qualified for the Africa Games to be hosted by Congo-Brazzaville in September.
Basuthu, who also coaches local giants Support Unit, was accused of bias after naming six players from the police outfit in his squad.
However, the long-serving coach stands by his decisions.
“People are allowed to have their own opinions, if I failed I should be nailed. However, I think the selection was okay; I feel it was the right team.
“This team was also selected after consulting a number of coaches, players outside the country, and as a technical team we feel we came up with the best possible team,” he said.
Basuthu added that he won’t be making any excuses after the failed mission,
“There is no reason for failure; I don’t want to give excuses, we can’t be crying every time.
“We should try to come up with solutions, especially on good preparations because they are critical,” said the coach, who only had two weeks to prepare his team.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe Volleyball Association president Frederick Ndlovu blames lack of Government support.
“The reason why we are failing to cross the line is we are lacking Government’s support. If we had the Government’s support we could have managed to bring some of our foreign-based players like Murray Ndlovu who is in Japan.
“We could have had more preparation time in camp, we could have had more to offer our players as motivation,’’ he said.
Tinaye Agere
Online Reporter