admin
ON a gloomy March evening in 2018, Zimbabwe’s cricket players sat in the dressing room at Harare Sports Club and wept. Such a show of emotion was uncommon, even in a group that had been together for a long time, but sometimes there are events in life that break down our usual barriers and Zimbabwe’s defeat to the UAE in a rain-affected game was this kind of moment.
There were various factors that made the heartbreak of failing to qualify for the 2019 World Cup all the more acute. Chief among them was the recognition that a generation of players who had built up a significant base of experience were unlikely to see another World Cup.
But another one was that Zimbabwe had thrown everything they had at qualification — luring two of their best players out of Kolpak contracts in England and convincing the ICC that they were capable of staging the Qualifiers — but ultimately had to face the fact that they had fallen to, or even below, the level of the Associates.
Four and a half years later, it may be too early to say that Zimbabwe have risen above that station — even after victories over Ireland and Scotland saw them through to the second round of the T20 World Cup for the first time (an achievement a little less notable for the fact that the Super 10s have been expanded to Super 12s).
But it does offer a moment to reflect on their progress in a period where their absence from global tournaments allowed the rest of the world to forget them, and note the gains that have been made.
The seeds for a revival actually pre-dated that 2018 moment by almost three years. It was August 2015 when Tavengwa Mukuhlani made an unexpected return to the Zimbabwe Cricket board as its chairman.
Coming after years of seedy backroom politics within the game, and with the organisation in debt to the tune of US$27 million, his arrival was not met with optimism and questions around his intentions would linger for years to come. But Mukuhlani had identified ZC’s biggest issue and was determined to resolve it.
Any old fool could have told you that ZC’s multi-million dollar debt with local banks at extraordinarily high interest rates was bleeding the game dry.
Any income from the ICC or broadcast rights was servicing the interest without reducing the debt, and wasn’t leaving enough for a functional cricket system.
Given that ZC’s previous administrators had links to one of the banks that was benefiting most from the arrangement, it was dubious whether there was any real desire to solve the issue.
But Mukuhlani came without that conflicted relationship and would prove that he meant well for the game.
Over time, this showed up in improved relationships with other members at the ICC, and an ability to persuade the Zimbabwe government to take over some of the loans at vastly more favourable interest rates. None of this was easy.
Mukuhlani would spend hours, even days, sitting in the waiting rooms of state offices to gain an audience with the government.
He also needed to convince the ICC that Zimbabwe was safe enough to host the 2018 Qualifiers.
All of these efforts came to fruition in the middle of 2020, when ZC became debt-free for the first time in well over a decade.
The impact this has had is evident all over the domestic system in Zimbabwe, and also in their performance in Australia. For most of the 2010s, the domestic game was hamstrung by a lack of finance.
Tournaments were kept as short as possible, and sometimes weren’t completed – or didn’t happen at all.
Players were paid poorly, and always late. In the background of the 2018 Qualifiers, ZC were scraping together money to pay the national squad so as not to dent morale in the middle of a crucial tournament.
Stories of player strikes and postponed tournaments now appear to be in the past.
Instead there is some stability in the men’s game and growth in the women’s, with 19 women offered central contracts this year — a previously unthinkable scenario.
Facilities have improved, and some grounds have been upgraded. Foreign players, mostly English, have returned to play out the northern hemisphere winter in Zimbabwe, raising the standard of the contests.
Evidence of these improvements has come through the performances of the players coming out of the domestic structures — a fact outlined by Sikandar Raza after Zimbabwe beat Bangladesh 2-1 in an ODI series in which they had given debuts to four players.
Of the 15-man squad from the 2018 Qualifiers, eight have either retired or sought opportunities elsewhere.
In essence these are transitional years for Zimbabwe and while the batting still leans on Raza, they are coping well – since the middle of the year they have gone unbeaten in the T20 World Cup qualifiers, won T20 and ODI series against Bangladesh and won an ODI in Australia.
Stable finances have underpinned this turnaround, and the next step could be to further increase the cricketing awareness within a system that suffered nearly two decades of depletion.
Lack of understanding of the game was evident at board level when ZC sacked the entire coaching structure after the 2018 Qualifiers. — Cricbuzz
Online Reporter