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Sports Reporter
FORMER Zimbabwe cricket international Gary Brent is excited to be coaching Harare Metropolitan side, Rangers, in their debut appearance in the Nation Premier League (NPL).
Rangers are one of the four teams that will be playing in the NPL for the first time this season.
The other first-time participants are Strikers from Mashonaland East, Rimuka from Mashonaland West and Knights from Masvingo.
The fourth edition of Zimbabwe’s top-flight club competition gets underway mid-June, with 14 teams vying for the coveted silverware in the 2024/25 campaign.
“We are very, very excited about getting a ticket to play in the NPL,” said Rangers coach Brent.
“It’s certainly a great privilege and honour — and we certainly didn’t think in our first season we would do that.
“For the development of our club, it’s really good, we have seen some young kids come through and hopefully we are coming to a stage where we can add more and more people to the development programme.
“It’s nice to see we have been having a lot of interest in our club and a lot of people coming to trial out which has been great.
“To be honest, I am not setting anybody a target. I just love us to just go in and do the best we can. We have to understand this is our first campaign, so we have to be realistic in sort of what we expect.
“I expect that we will hopefully win more games than we lose and that’s the sort of target that we are looking forward to.
“But I’m interested to see how we do. We have got some exceptional players who have signed up for us and it’s going to be an interesting time.”
Harare Metropolitan had defending champions Takashinga Patriots 1, Takashinga Patriots 2, Gladiators, and Rangers securing their places in the NPL directly from the province’s main league, while Rainbow qualified via the playoffs. Bulawayo Metropolitan’s guaranteed berths were taken up by Amakhosi and Queens Sports Club, with Bulawayo Athletic Club joining them from the playoffs.
Manicaland, Masvingo and Midlands each had one spot, with Westside, Scorpions and Mbizo earning direct qualification from those provinces respectively.
Strikers, Knights and Rimuka complete the line-up after coming through the playoffs.
The debutant teams are all excited and looking forward to making their mark in the main club cricket competition in the country.
Rimuka coach Adam Chifo expressed confidence ahead of the season.
“We are very excited about playing in the highest club league in the country. It is indeed a milestone for a small town like Kadoma.
“Nothing beats playing in the highest club league in the country for Rimuka, looking back at our humble beginnings, it is indeed a dream come true for all of us.
“We believe in doing our best every outing and letting the results take care of themselves. For us, the sky is the limit. We have our eyes fixed on the number one spot but we will take each game as it comes.”
Knights captain Joe Khoma said: “We are very excited to be in the NPL this season. We worked hard for it and we feel as if it has paid off.
“NPL for us means we are now in the big league in terms of competition. It means we get to compete against the best in the country and our very young squad can finally be recognised and get exposure and experience to one day be in the national team.
“Top eight is our goal in our inaugural season. We have a plan to achieve this and we are setting ourselves small targets as our strategy for long-term growth.”
Peter Tanyanyiwa
Online Reporter