Minister Makhosini Hlongwane
Sports Reporter
SPORT and Recreation Minister, Makhosini Hlongwane, held a consultative meeting with Zimbabwe Cricket and Sports Commission officials where he called for the game to realise its full potential.
The ZC board was led by chairman Tavengwa Mukuhlani with the meeting meant for ZC to appraise Hlongwane and the Sports Commission on the state of cricket, their challenges and opportunities.
“The decisions that were taken are that Zimbabwe Cricket must put measures in place to make sure that the Zimbabwe national cricket team gets back to the winning ways,” said Hlongwane.
“We agreed that the Zimbabwe Cricket board must develop a key players’ retention strategy in order to avoid unnecessary loss of skill and talent.
“They lost such players in the recent past as Brendan Taylor and there is some kind of apathy for players that go to Australia, to New Zealand and to England in terms of them coming back to play for the national team.
“Coupled with the players’ retention strategy is that they must put in place a diaspora athletes mobilisation strategy to deal with issues of feeding into the national team.
“We agreed that the Zimbabwe National Team B side. otherwise known as Zim A, must be resourced and has to be active.”
Hlongwane said they also agreed that ZC revert to the provincial system, instead of the franchise system, and they were hoping to engage South Africa Cricket for more tours between the two countries.
“We agreed that they must go back to the provincial system instead of franchise system because it the provincial system that got us into Test status and then becoming a performing team that we used to be.
“And that they must introduce a cricket premier league.
“We also agreed that there must be stability in the administration of cricket, no politics please. We were very clear on that,” Hlongwane said.
The meeting also noted that cricket should be introduced in all schools, including those in the rural areas, so that the game does not remain an elitist sport.
Hlongwane said they are going to approach the fiscal authorities to discuss the issue of duty for sport equipment imported into the country and he wants to see good governance in cricket.
ZC, who are saddled with a US$19 million debt, are also expected to come up with a clear debt retirement strategy immediately.
“We are are working on various activities. We have been working on cost cutting measures, also re-aligning our cash flow with the debt that we have at hand. We will come up with a clear retirement plan that we will give to the SRC,” said Mukhuhlani.
“We need to deal with the debt, we are looking at our income and expenditure and match the two and then come up with a plan.
“The league has already started. What we will happen is we have 10 provinces in Zimbabwe, so we have divided the provinces into two groups where we have got four provinces – Manicaland, Harare, Bulawayo and Midlands as the first class provinces.
“Then we have six other provinces – Mashonaland West, Mashonaland Central, Mashonaland East, Masvingo, Matabeleland North and Matabeleland South as our associate provinces.
“So the first four will be playing in their own league where they are playing strength for strength. Then the other six will play in their own league where they are also playing strength for strength.
“We want the four strong teams to play each other and the lower also they play each other then we have the relegation-promotion system.
“Then we have the national league or national competition, that’s club competition where clubs from all over the country play in their provincial league, after provinces they play the national league,” said Mukuhlani.