ZC High-Performance Programme concludes
THE three-day High-Performance Programme from Zimbabwe Cricket (ZC) that was taking place at Queens Sports Club in Bulawayo has come to an end with the coach, Steve Mangongo impressed with the proceedings.
At least 30 Under-25 players from across the country were selected to take part in the programme which began on Sunday and came to an end on Tuesday. They were under the watchful eye of experienced development coach, Mangongo alongside the likes of Thabo Mboyi and Njabulo Ncube.
The players selected for the programme were put into two teams, Northerns and Southerns and played a total of four matches between the three days in which they were in camp.
They began with two 50-over games on Sunday and Monday and Tuesday, they played two T20 matches to round up what was a much-needed experience for the country’s next generation of international cricketers. Speaking after the conclusion of the programme, Mangongo said the whole idea was to identify and nurture players who will soon feed into the country’s First Class and international levels.
He said they were polishing their skills to get them better than they already are.
Mangongo was impressed with some of the talent that he got to witness throughout the regional matches and believes the future is in safe hands. The just-ended programme is not the last and is set to continue in the future to make sure that budding talents are not neglected.
“The whole idea behind this is to make sure that we identify players whom we believe are the future of Zimbabwe. It needs constant training to make sure that they polish their skills, they get better, they get intelligence and their game skill improve.
“Over the three days, we have seen a lot of competitive cricket within the boys and that’s part of the pathway where we bring the best 30 players in Zimbabwe, time and again to compete among themselves, to play high-class cricket and be aware of the needs in terms of training, so we are quite happy, we are quite satisfied with the enthusiasm shown by the players.
“Their skill factor has been good, we have had a couple of boys shining with the ball,
Prosper Mugeri — this is his first time at this level for Mountaineers he bowled very well, 15-year-old Malachi Harry was also on top of his game.
“This is part of identifying these players, we’ve had players like Tashinga Musekiwa who is a very explosive batter and has shown us some really good hitting abilities and the more we keep grooving the players’ technique the better. These players will eventually feed into our First Class; they will eventually feed into our national team as finished products,” said Mangongo.
He gave credit to ZC for coming up with such an initiative and believes results will soon follow.
However, it will not be an instant thing, it will take time but patience is needed to make sure that the best possible results are yielded.
“This has been successful; Zimbabwe Cricket has put in a lot of resources to make sure that this the project continues to run smoothly. It’s a marathon, success is not going to come overnight, and as a marathon, we need to have the patience, we need to continue to create the right conducive environments for our cricketers to become international cricketers because there is a difference between international cricketers and domestic cricketers so we need to close that gap.
“It’s exciting and we are on a journey and within the next 18 months we should be getting some good news,” said Mangongo.
In the two T20 matches played on Tuesday, Southern Under-25s won the first match by a hefty 91 runs before going on to lose the second encounter by four wickets.
In the first encounter, Southerns Under25s, batting first, scored 218/4 in 20 overs courtesy of an Alistar Frost unbeaten 93 runs off 56 balls before going on to restrict Northerns Under-25 to 127/8 to secure victory. The second game was a thriller as it went down to the last over despite the low scores. Batting first, Southerns were restricted to 128/9 in 20 overs before Northerns chased down the target with five balls left to spare, finishing on 129/6 in 19.1 overs.
The players who took part in the regional matches are an emerging side for Zimbabwe and the program was used to select a team that will represent Zimbabwe at the upcoming 2024 All-Africa
Games in Ghana next month. This year’s games will be the first to feature cricket.