EXACTLY 135 years since the first ball was bowled in the first cricket match played in this country in Masvingo on August 12, 1890, Zimbabwe will today host a World Cup final game for the first time. England, the country which introduced the sport here through Cecil John Rhodes’ Pioneer Column, will take on India, the country which played a leading role in helping us get Test status in 1992. The two countries are battling for the ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup trophy at Harare Sports Club today.
It was in recognition of the historical part that Masvingo played, in the introduction of cricket in this country, that Zimbabwe Cricket decided that it should host one of the warm-up matches. Eight years after the first cricket match was played there, Lord Hawke led an English representative side to a tour of Zimbabwe in 1998. Now, 127 years later, a group of teenage English boys are on the threshold of World Cup success in Harare.
It’s the first time that a World Cup final of a major sports code is being held on Zimbabwean soil. Former Chevrons captain Duncan Fletcher became the first foreign coach to take charge of England. In 2005, he became the first England coach to win an Ashes series in 18 years.
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He also guided India to the ICC Champions Trophy in 2013. Andy Flower guided England to the ICC T20 World Cup in 2010. There will be some critics who will dismiss this as just a junior World Cup final match which doesn’t carry the same weight as a showdown between the seniors.
But, the weakness of that argument is that it doesn’t only ignore history but tries to make a mockery of it. It ignores the fact that not so long ago, Zimbabwe was being forced to skip some major ICC tournaments, because of some political battles, far away from the cricket fields. It ignores the fact that England even refused to come and fulfil a World Cup fixture in 2003 in Harare, because of the same political battles.
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