Hail the champions
MOUNTAINEERS enhanced their reputation as the most successful Mutare-based team in any sporting code after winning the Logan Cup, Zimbabwe’s first class domestic cricket competition for a third consecutive season.
The Mountain Goats as they are affectionately known by their supporters beat title contenders Eagles by 10 wickets at Old Hararians on Sunday to reach an unassailable 36 points in this season’s Logan Cup with a match in hand.
Second-placed Rhinos finished on 29 points having played all their games, while Eagles who topped the log for most of the season finished third with 26 points. Tuskers are bottom with 14 points having failed to win a single match all season.
Over the last couple of years Mountaineers have repeatedly put Mutare in the national spotlight with their exploits in the Logan Cup, making them the darlings of sports aficionados in Mutare while also providing a launch pad for locals such as Tino Mawoyo, Donald Tiripano and Tendai Chatara to go on and represent the Chevrons, our national cricket team.
Sports fans that look at Mutare’s sporting landscape with nostalgia-tinted spectacles will argue that the famed Tanganda football team of the early 90s, which featured some of the finest footballers to come out of Mutare such as Lloyd “Samaita” Mutasa, Patrick Chapoterera and Joseph “Shabba” Takaringofa is the most successful team to come out of this picturesque eastern highlands city.
However, history will remind us that with the exception of their Castle Cup triumph in 1993 Tanganda were regularly in the trenches of the relegation battle during their dalliance with Zimbabwe’s top flight football league.
That being said there is no questioning Tanganda’s place in local sports folklore with their status in our collective memory almost mythical. Mountaineers captain Tino Mawoyo, a local boy who has led the team in their three successive Logan cups triumphs — a record in the franchise era of domestic cricket says that they have earned the right to be regarded as the most successful team from Mutare.
“If you look at our record since the franchise era started in 2009, we have been the most dominant and successful team in Zimbabwean cricket.
“During this period we have collected silverware in the different formats of the game.
“We won the Pro 50 championship in 2009 and went on to do the double in the 2013-14 season when we won both the Pro 50 championship and the Logan Cup.
“In recent times we have enjoyed more success in first class domestic cricket, winning the Logan cup over the last three seasons. No other team from Mutare has enjoyed more success in any sport,” he told Post Sport.
Mountaineers are looking to add more trophies to their trophy cabinet this season with the Pro 50 Championship and Twenty20 competitions still to be played.
Mawoyo believes they have the right personnel to complete the treble season.
“We we have a great mix of youth and experience in our changing room. Going into the List A competition next and then the Twenty20 after that, I hope we can translate our dominance into the shorter formats of the game and win more silverware but even if it doesn’t happen we have already had some wonderful performances from the boys in the Logan Cup and we have to take our hats off to them. Winning the Logan Cup for the third year in a row is a special feeling,” he said
If the Mountaineers can go on and win more silverware this season, they can only further cement their place in our local sports history as the best from the east.