admin
Paul Munyuki Harare Bureau
FORMER Zimbabwe national cricket team bowler Douglas Hondo is the only survivor from the previous technical team that was led by Steve Mangongo during the nightmarish tour of Bangladesh. Zimbabwe Cricket yesterday revealed that newly-appointed coach Dav Whatmore will be assisted by Hondo as the bowling coach, former national team coach Andy Waller comes in as the batting coach while Walter Chawaguta was named as the fielding coach.
Since his appointment as the new national coach, Whatmore had been working with Hondo.
ZC managing director in charge of development and commercial, Alistair Campbell, yesterday said Whatmore was pleased with working with these local coaches having made his own choice on whom he preferred working with.
“Dav has signed for three months and after looking at the facilities he has indicated he would like a longer term engagement with Zimbabwe Cricket and that will be entertained knowing how experienced he is.
“Dav didn’t want any foreign coach to assist him because he felt they don’t have the good knowledge of the team at the moment so we needed these sorts of persons as they’ve knowledge of the players.
“He’s the one who asked for these coaches so we gave him what he wanted because as Zimbabwe Cricket we believe that we have to give them the best tools available so that we will have meaningful review processes as they had all they wanted. We want to create a no-excuse culture,” said Campbell.
He said the appointment of Waller and Chawaguta to the coaching team was for, specifically, the World Cup but would be subject to review.
“The board has realised the need to progress in the right direction, especially after the Bangladesh tour, there was no one really to say anything pleasant about Zimbabwe Cricket, the results weren’t of the required nature.
“But there’s a new structure, there’s a new coach and after this World Cup, according to the ICC, we’ll have to be in the top eight if we’re to automatically qualify and if we’re not in the top eight by 2017 and fail to win the play-off in Bangladesh then we don’t qualify for the World Cup.
“So failure to qualify has dire consequence to Zimbabwe Cricket and so we need to pay attention to the national team and create viable talent identification pathways so that we nurture and develop talent and put the best available resources into a structure that can one day represent the nation,” said Campbell
The Zimbabwe team is expected to leave on Wednesday next week with Campbell saying they will use the period before the tournament to acclimatise to the conditions in New Zealand and Australia.
Whatmore is aiming to reach the Super Eight from Zimbabwe’s pool that has South Africa, India, West Indies, Pakistan, Ireland and the United Arab Emirates.
Zimbabwe National Team Coaching Staff
Coach: Dav Whatmore
Bowling: Douglas Hondo
Batting: Andy Waller
Fielding: Walter Chawaguta
Online Reporter