Chronicle Editor
Mehluli Sibanda, Senior Sports Reporter
AFTER last week’s announcement by Emirates Airlines that they have suspended flights to Zimbabwe for two weeks, the country’s senior national cricket series against Afghanistan, to be played in the United Arab Emirates should still not be affected.
Zimbabwe and Afghanistan clash in two Tests and three Twenty20 Internationals in Abu Dhabi with the matches to take place from 2-20 March. Emirates halted flights between Dubai and Harare from yesterday until 28 February.
This saw the Pakistan women’s cricket team that was in Zimbabwe for three one-day matches and same number of T20Is cut short their stay having fulfilled just one fixture against their Zimbabwean counterparts. Because of the announcement by Emirates, the Pakistan women, who were scheduled to return home on 21 February flew out on Friday.
There were fears that the Zimbabwe men’s team could have their series against Afghanistan being postponed or cancelled. However, Zimbabwe Cricket managing director, Givemore Makoni said while they also use Emirates for such trips, they were looking at other options to get to the UAE. The Zimbabwean team is scheduled to fly out to the UAE on Friday. Online flight searches showed that Ethiopian Airlines is still flying from Harare to the UAE via Addis Ababa.
“We also use Emirates Airlines but as long as there are flights coming out of Harare, the tour should not be affected.
We are exploring other airlines looking at which ones are still flying in terms of the routes they take and how much time we spend at the airport. Our travel agent is looking at all the options,’’ said Makoni.
A squad of 32 players has been in camp for two weeks and played a four-day practice match last week at Old Hararians. Another four-day fine tuning fixture is lined up from today at Harare Sports Club. Makoni said they were still in talks with their Afghanistan Cricket Board counterparts on how many players to take on the tour.
“All the preparations are being done in a controlled environment, we are still in talks with ACB on the number of players to take to the UAE but it’s likely to be one squad.”
National team coach, Lalchand Rajput who was given permission to take a short stint as coach of Maratha Arabians in the Abu Dhabi T10 in back in Zimbabwe and is now in charge of team’s preparations for the matches against Afghanistan. Rajput’s team finished second from bottom in the eight-team Abu Dhabi T10 with just one win.
Makoni clarified that when they gave go-ahead to Rajput to take up the short assignment in the UAE, ZC had not yet been given permission to conduct any cricket activity.
“He came last week and is in charge of the preparations in a big way. We were under lockdown and the coach had been sitting in the hotel for two weeks doing nothing, he wanted to go for a short stint, we allowed him because we had no response from the SRC on when to resume training,’’ Makoni said.
On the Adam Chifo coached women’s national team, which is preparing for the Women’s Cricket World Cup Qualifier to be staged in Sri Lanka from 26 June to 10 July, Makoni indicated that they were planning to organise a tour for the Lady Chevrons before they head off for the qualifiers.
After the cancellation of the rest of the matches against Pakistan, the Mary-Anne Musonda captained Lady Chevrons have been sent home and will get back into camp once the men’s team leaves for the UAE. — @Mdawini_29
Bongani Ndlovu