Zimbabwe Cricket postpones their National T20 tournament

Zimbabwe Cricket (ZC) are forced to postpone their National T20 League in the absence of key national players from the tournament. As many as eight players including six senior national team players are set to play in the Shpageeza Cricket League to be held in Afghanistan starting from September 11th. The ZC, who planned to start their T20 league from September 15th, had no option left but to postpone the event to a later date.

Zimbabwe Internationals, Hamilton Masakadza, Sikandar Raza, Solomon Mire, Vusi Sibanda, Elton Chigumbura, Richmond Mutumbami and rookies Richard Ngarava and Ryan Burl will be a part of the Afghanistan T20 league. Sean Williams, who was also a part of the league, pulled out at the last moment to focus on fitness.

“A lot of our players had agreed contracts to play in the Afghanistan league and going ahead with the T20 competition would mean that we would be short of at least 10 players which would have breached the value of the competition because you would want all your high-profile players to be there.” The ZC head of cricket affairs, Givemore Makoni said.

The Zimbabwe Cricket planned to host the T20 tournament across two venues in Bulawayo with seven teams including two foreign teams and an Associate Provisional Select side. The regular format of the T20 tournament will be back with the postponement.

“The position is that we are changing the competition and spreading the games so that they are played in a league format as opposed to playing a few days’ tournament in one city. It will now be played throughout the season with the top side in terms of points being crowned champions at the end of the season.” Makoni was quoted saying to Daily News.

Domestic season to begin with Logan Cup

The ZC planned to start the 2017/18 domestic season with the T20 tournament but now the premier first-class competition, Logan Cup. will be kick starting the season ahead of Zimbabwe’s home Test series against the West Indies.

“We are now going to start with the Logan Cup as we look ahead to the Test series against West Indies so that the players get a feel of the longer version before the Caribbean Islanders arrive and currently we are working on the new dates but the league should be in full swing next month,” Makoni said.