PHILLIMON MHLANGA
The Zim Afro T10 franchise -based cricket tournament kicks off today at Harare Sports Club, the ceremonial home of Zimbabwe cricket, with Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa expected to officially open the showpiece.
It will run until July 29.
The tournament will feature a total of five teams: the Harare Hurricanes, Bulawayo Braves, Durban Qalandars, Cape Town Samp Army, and Johannesburg Buffaloes.
Today at 7pm, the Harare Sports Club will host the opening game between the Harare Hurricanes and the Bulawayo Braves.
The second game will take place on Friday and pit Cape Town Samp Army against Durban Qalandars.
President Mnangagwa, who is expected to be accompanied by the Minister of Youth, Sport, Arts and
Recreation, Kirsty Coventry, is also expected to hand over the 10 scholarships to school cricketers.
“HE will tomorrow (today) officiate at the opening ceremony of Zim Afro T10 tournament at the Harare Sports Club,” a senior government official told BT Sport yesterday.
T Ten Global Sports, which is chaired by billionaire Shaji UI Mulk, partnered with Zimbabwe Cricket to launch the Zim Afro T10.
Mulk stated that in order to keep the T10 league free of any corrupt activity, the league will continue to work with the International Cricket Council Anti-Corruption Unit (ICC ACU).
He was responding to concerns raised about anti-corruption code violations at a press conference held Tuesday in
the capital Harare.
To preserve the integrity of the cricket g a m e , Mulk said that the T10 League strictly adheres to the ICC ACU policy.
“We are extremely honoured and happy that the ZC board, being a full member board of ICC has selected and licenced the T10 format in Zimbabwe.
“We have a zero-tolerance approach against corruption in cricket and the T10 League has a strict policy of adhering to ICC ACU to uphold the integrity of the game of cricket.”
Tavengwa Mukuhlani, the chairman of Zimbabwe Cricket, weighed in, promising that the matches would be played in a setting of the utmost integrity.
He said: “Integrity is top priority in any tournament. We have gone through a whole process of due diligence prior to licensing T10 and that process involves working together with the integrity unit at ICC.
T10 is not being played for the first time in Zimbabwe. It’s been running in Abu Dhabi. This is its sixth year running and obviously the integrity issues have been put in place.
“We are working with the ICC integrity Unit to make sure the integrity of the game is not jeopardized.
So, I can assure you that we are on top of our game in terms of making sure that these games are played with the highest of integrity that we expect, the fans expect, and the players expect.”
The league will feature a big pool of local stars including Sikandar Raza, Sean Williams, Hamilton Masakadza, Blessing Muzarabani and Brandon Mavuta, the league will also have international stars.
These include England’s World Cup winning captain Eoin Morgan, Tim Siefert, Mohammed Amir, Oden Smith and Junior Dala, among many others.
The T10 is a new and shorter version of cricket that sees 90 minutes of fast paced cricket.
Mulk said his company was also supporting schools.
“This opens up many opportunities for us as a company because in our quest to go global, this is the first stop after the Abu Dhabi T10, to be part of the global journey.
“For us here, the concept and our direction is not just about coming to the country and playing the tournament and come back next year.
It’s about us investing in the domestic structure.Before the T10 we had already supported ZC in the domestic T10 and also the national team in the World Cup Qualifier.
“For the last few weeks we have done a grassroots schools tournament where we have selected about 30 school kids and 10 of them will be given scholarships. On top of that we have also done a nationwide player development programme.
Our scouts have been going around the country in different venues and actually harnessing the talent and from this talent five of the cricketers will walk straight into the T10 franchise teams.”
