AT a glance, Simbarashe Mudzengerere does not look like the kind of leader you spot from the stands. He does not strut. He does not bark.
He does not audition for attention. If anything, he feels like the sort of presence you only register once you have watched long enough, the quiet figure who keeps returning to the centre of things without ever announcing himself. “Withdrawn, quiet, someone who often sinks into the background,” one fan quipped during Zimbabwe’s tense group match against Pakistan at the Under-19 Cricket World Cup.
It sounded like a quick judgement, the kind people make when the scoreboard is squeezing the air out of everyone’s lungs. Zimbabwe were being pushed hard, boundaries were flowing, and with every run conceded their chances of making the Super Six phase felt like they were slipping away. In moments like that, the crowd wants visible defiance.
[paywall]
They want fists clenched, shoulders squared, a captain who looks like he is arguing with fate. Mudzengerere offered none of that. Not the theatre, not the extra.
What followed was qualification, the sort that arrives without fireworks, and still changes everything. Zimbabwe edged through Group C on net run rate, alongside Pakistan, at the expense of Scotland. Pakistan chased down a modest target of 129 at Takashinga Cricket Club, but slowed deliberately from the end of the 14th over onwards and ultimately got there in 26.2 overs.
Had they finished earlier, Scotland would have advanced. Instead, Zimbabwe did. The merits and morals of that chase will live in cricket’s long corridors of debate, where people argue about what rules allow and what the game should refuse.
Mudzengerere chose not to hang his story on that afternoon. He refrained from commenting on it and when he spoke about the tournament, he spoke like someone trying to understand the bigger patterns, not the loudest controversy. For him, it was never only about one match or one outcome.
It was about learning how to stay present when control feels elusive. About reading situations. About accepting that sport, like life, does not always reward the team that deserves it most; it rewards the team that survives the moment it is given.
[/paywall]
All Zim News – Bringing you the latest news and updates.
