admin Sports Reporter
GWANDA Giants won the opening games of the Matabeleland South Cricket League on Saturday by beating ZRP Matabeleland South in back-to-back Twenty20 matches played at Portland Primary School in Colleen Bawn.
In the first T20 match, the Giants elected to field after winning the toss and restricted the police side to 89 runs. Needing 90 runs to win, the Giants powered to victory courtesy of man-of-the-match Richard Makara’s 25 runs off 46 balls.
The Giants also won the toss for the second match and elected to bat. They managed 162 runs for the loss of seven wickets from their 20 overs, with Isaac Tlou blitzing 55 runs off 42 balls.
They went on to bundle out ZRP Matabeleland South for 57 runs to win the match by a massive 105 runs.
Matabeleland South Cricket chairman Arthur Maphosa said the three registered clubs’ league matches will be played every fortnight.
He is hopeful of establishing other clubs in Plumtree and Beitbridge.
“At the moment we’ve got three teams, Gwanda Giants, Gwanda Legends and ZRP Matabeleland South, who have players from Plumtree, Gwanda and Beitbridge. Our aim is to have a club from Plumtree and Beitbridge joining the league to ensure that the sport is played in those towns. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get equipment from well-wishers seeing that the league is underway,” he said.
Maphosa, who is also the National Association of Secondary School Heads (Nash) vice-president, also noted with concern that cricket activities at the grassroots level in his province are almost non-existent.
Falcon College and Plumtree High are the only schools that play competitive cricket.
Maphosa said they are targeting at having non-examination classes playing cricket at the beginning of next month.
“The major challenge is equipment and lack of playing facilities in the province. We’re grateful to Portland Primary for allowing us to stage our games at the school, but we need to spread cricket across the province, hence the need to establish cricket development centres (CDCs) at strategic schools in the province. We intend to get schools playing cricket by next month so that by the time schools open next year, we continue with our development programme,” said Maphosa.
Londile Moyo
Bongani Ndlovu