New-look T20 tournament on cards

AFTER successfully launching the Zim Afro T10 tournament last year, Zimbabwe Cricket has plans to launch a T20 version with international flavour this year.

Zimbabwe Cricket director of cricket, Hamilton Masakadza revealed, during an interview on ZTN Prime’s “Morning Rush”, that they will be launching a T20 tournament this year.

“We have plans to launch a franchise-based T20 tournament this year.

“The tournament, which will be pretty much the same as the Zim Afro T10 that we had last year and will not be run the same that we run our domestic T20 tournament.

“The upcoming T20 tournament will be run more like the Zim Afro T10 or the South Africa T20 tournament,” said Masakadza.

He believes that having an international-based franchise tournament will play a pivotal role in developing the sport in the country.

“It is important for countries to have to have their sort of international tournaments as it adds to the level of the game because when you start having more international players in the dressing rooms the young guys get to learn a lot by sharing a lot of knowledge with these stars.

“These tournaments expose players to different conditions and it is important that we get this going and plans are underway to have this tournament this year,” said Masakadza. The inaugural edition of the Zim Afro T10 saw different international stars participating in the tournament.

As part of trying to get the local players exposed to international cricket before being called for national team assignment, Masakadza revealed that an improvement in relations with the England Cricket Board will see ZC seconding players to clubs in England in the upcoming season.

“In terms of exchange programs what we are going to do this season is that we will second a few of our A-side players to some clubs in England and have them play a couple of club cricket,” said Masakadza.