JAYSON KARAN
Zimbabwe has become the second International Cricket Council (ICC) member to introduce a global 10 over cricket competition following the launch of the Zim Afro T10 event in Harare on Friday.
The franchise is expected to bring cricket stars from around the world, with six privately-owned teams set to take part.The event, is scheduled for August this year.
Zim Cyber City is partnering Zimbabwe Cricket (ZC) in this historic event which is expected to change the face of the sport in Zimbabwe while marketing the country as a tourist destination.
ZC managing director, Givemore Makoni, said they had done all due diligence to ensure the tournament was clean.
“There are a lot of leagues around the world and Zimbabwe doesn’t have one,” said Makoni.
“We are one of the 12 Test-playing nations so we need to have our own, but just as everyone is saying, we needed to do due diligence that whatever league we are going to be involved in is clean,” he added.
That is why it took us some time to come up with this,” he said.
According to Makoni, Zimbabwe Cricket Board is busy as they want Zimbabwe to be known for cricket. They have also increased cricket tournaments in the country as a way of keeping all cricket players busy and in shape. It’s one of the things that once contributed to Zimbabwe Cricket’s downfall as they didn’t have enough game time.
Adding tournaments like this will create much-needed game time and it will not focus and help only the national team players, but also the fringe players and talented youngsters.
Global T10 and Zim City founder, Shaji Ul Mulk, said he dreams of seeing cricket being introduced at the Olympics games.
He said negotiating with the local board was a long process.
“We have been negotiating with the board for about a year and the board had its own terms and conditions it had to approve and all that stuff,” said Makoni.