LATEST: Heath Streak confirmed as new national team coach

Mehluli Sibanda, @Mdawini_29

FORMER Zimbabwe captain Heath Streak is the new national cricket team coach, taking over a post that was left vacant by the departure of Australian Davenell Whatmore.

Streak was announced as the man to take charge of the national team by ZC chairman Tavengwa Mukuhlani at Queens Sports Club this morning. Mukuhlani disclosed that Streak has been engaged on a two year deal with his biggest expectation being to ensure that Zimbabwe make an appearance at the 2019 International Cricket Council Cricket World Cup in England. With Zimbabwe far off from a top eight ranking on the ICC One Day International table, they have to go through the qualifiers to secure a place in the global event.

Streak resigned as Bangladesh bowling coach in May, the same month that Whatmore was sacked by ZC for poor results. South African Makhaya Ntini, initially engaged to take care of the bowlers had been the interim head coach since Whatmore was fired and presided over the limited overs series against India and the two Tests with New Zealand.

Mukuhlani said he believes that they have gone for the best candidate for the job. He revealed that the engagement of Streak was one of the final steps in the technical department restructuring process. He expressed gratitude to Ntini for holding fort while ZC were in the process of searching for a coach.

“This is one of the last steps in our technical department to bring in a head coach to fill in the vacancy that was left by Dav Whatmore. Zimbabwe Cricket would want to convey its gratitude and many thanks to Makhaya Ntini for the job that he has done from the time that he took over looking after the team, he went through some difficult series against India he then took the team through New Zealand, some good results were posted against India in the T20 series it was a close series, we saw an improvement in the Test series against New Zealand , as you are aware we were coming from a so to speak an exile of playing the longer version of the game, the team managed to play the second Test for five days, ’’ said Mukuhlani.

Streak’s immediate task is to prepare the national team for the two Test matches against Sri Lanka at the end of the October which will be followed by a triangular ODI series featuring West Indies.