adminSomething really caught our attention this week.
In cricket, our star all-rounder, Sikandar Raza, wrote another piece of history for himself as her blistering form, this year, continues to be acknowledged, and celebrated, across the globe.
This time, the celebrations centred on Raza becoming the first player, in the history of the gentlemen’s game, to score 753 international runs at the same ground in one year.
His runs came at the Harare Sports Club, the home of local cricket, throughout the year with 540 runs coming in nine one-day internationals (including three centuries).
Another 213 runs came in six T20Is.
Until Raza’ heroics, the previous record for one ground, in a calendar year, was the 738 by Pakistan’s Zaheer Abbas, in Lahore, in 1982.
That’s 40 years ago and that tells us, if we needed any explanation, why this is a special feat, which doesn’t always happen.
Only the elite cricketers, the best of the very best, can achieve that.
And, the company, in which Raza now finds himself in, tells the story that this isn’t just a regular group of cricketers.
Indian superstar, Sachin Tendulkar (709 in Sharjah in 1998) and Shakib Al Hasan of Bangladesh (703 in Mirpur in 2010) are some of the stars who achieved such a remarkable feat.
Refreshingly, the other members of that elite league are also Zimbabweans – the Flower brothers, Andy and Grant, who achieved it on different grounds at home in 2001.
Grant scored 699 in Bulawayo, while Andy made 676 in Harare.
The success of our cricketers underlines the fact that we are, indeed, a proud and competitive sporting nation.
To emphasise that point, only this week The Guardian newspaper of the United Kingdom released their annual list of the 20 footballers they believe are the brightest talents in the English Premiership.
And, predictably, there is a Zimbabwean teenage star on that list.
His name is Leon Chiwome and we have carried his story in today’s edition of our newspaper.
The 16-year-old is on the books of Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Chiwome is just the latest Zimbabwean footballer to make this list.
Before him, we had Reiss Nelson in 2016, when he was still an emerging talent at Arsenal, and then Newcastle United’s Michael Ndiweni in 2020.
Chiwome has a Zimbabwean father and a British mother.
“For Leon to join a Premier League club, following the departures of other players and staff to higher levels, is a measure of the quality and potential we’ve developed here,” Michael Hamilton, who was his academy manager, told The Guardian.
“Leon has applied himself correctly since day one, and he has huge potential. If he continues to apply himself, there’s every chance of him fulfilling his ambitions in the future.”
For a small country of less than 20 million people, we continue to punch above our weight when it comes to our impact in world sport.
There is no denying that we have been blessed with talented sportspersons and these refreshing talents just hammer home that point.
Mathew Masinge
Online Reporter