Captains pose at the opening ceremony at the U19 Cricket World Cup

I was pleased to find that Zimbabwe were competing at the ICC U19 Cricket World Cup 2010 in New Zealand, it is also interesting to look through the list of names, with a few having some pretty familiar Zimbabwean cricket surnames. Like Nathan Waller, who’s uncle, Andrew Waller and his cousin, Malcolm Waller, have both represented Zimbabwe at international level.

A player with a bright future must surely be Dylon Higgins, now 18, he burst onto the first-class scene in 2009, taking 11 wickets on his first-class debut. He is a leg-spinner, who lists Shane Warne as his cricketing hero. He also has plenty of family cricketing heritage with his uncle, Colin Robertson, and brother, Ryan, both having appeared for Zimbabwe. In a throw back to the days of Andy and Guy Whittall, he has a cousin in the squad Calum Price, who in turn also has a fairly familiar family name.

Other players to keep an eye on include Tinotenda Mutombodzi who is an important player for Zimbabwe with the bat while Steve Chimhamhiwa is also highly rated.

Overall, Zimbabwe will head into the tournament desperate to make a mark in the tournament after some disappointing performances in recent years, but will find it pretty difficult after being placed in a strong group which also features New Zealand and Sri Lanka and having already lost to Canada by 10 runs and then suffering a big defeat by 8 wickets to Sri Lanka earlier today.

In the group stages of the 2008 event, Zimbabwe lost all its games, losing to Pakistan by 87 runs, Malaysia by 70 runs and New Zealand by 98 runs.

Zimbabwe U19 then suffered a embarrassing defeat to Nepal by 99 runs in the ninth placed play-off, defeated Malaysia by 44 runs in the next stage of the competition, before losing to Ireland by six wickets in the 13th place play-off.

In recent matches Zimbabwe U19s has lost one-day series 5-0 to Bangladesh and 6-1 to Pakistan. It will draw comfort, though, from the fact that Pakistan is a two-time winner of this event and the consolation victory against this opponent illustrates that on its day it could be a dangerous side for anybody to face.

With Zimbabwe’s senior team going through a transitional stage, players will know that spots in the squad for the ICC World Twenty20, that will take place in the Caribbean in April and May, are potentially up for grabs.

And the fact some of the squad are getting their chance in a restructured domestic set-up, allied with improving opportunities in international cricket, means that these are exciting times to be a young cricketer in Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe U19 Squad:
Dylon Higgins (c)
Andrew Lindsay
Calum Price
Dean Mashawidza
Gary Chirimuuta
Mazvita Zambuko
Nathan Waller
Natsai M´Shangwe
Peter Moor
Richard Muzhange
Scott Daly
Simon Mugava
Stephen Chimhamhiwa
Tendai Chatara
Tinotenda Mutombodzi

In a warm up match for the ICC U19 Cricket World Cup, Zimbabwe had a comfortable victory over qualifiers Afghanistan, chasing down 175 in steady if unspectacular fashion to win by four wickets with overs in hand. After losing their first wicket on the third ball, Zimbabwe consolidated and enjoyed several solid partnerships, Peter Moor top scoring with 45 and Andrew Lindsay compiling 37.

Earlier Zimbabwe’s opening bowlers had taken five wickets between them to inflict severe damage on the Afghanistan innings. After also losing a wicket in the first over Afghanistan were never able to lift their run rate above the sedate. Hashmat Shaidi’s 50 was the best score of the innings.

Zimbabwe:
176-6 in 40.3 overs (Peter Moor 45, Andrew Lindsay 37, Dylon Higgins 30; Ayub Khan 2-28, Hamza Hotak 2-44)
Zimbabwe won by four wickets

Afghanistan:
175 in 44.2 overs (Hashmat Shaidi 50, Javed Ahmadi 30; Calum
Price 3-57, Tendai Chatara 2-25)

The owner of Mbare-Musika.com, an interesting Zimbabwean website contacted me the other day.

As many of us will know in the suburb of Mbare in Harare, right next to the main bus station there is a major market that trades mostly fruit and vegetables as well as clothing and also pretty much anything else known as Mbare Musika.

Like it’s namesake, www.mbare-musika.com is a free classifieds ads website which offers opportunity to local Zimbabweans to advertise their product and services for free. According to the owner you can use the classifieds to post as many products as you like, just note to abide by the rules to keep the site safe as this will help them develop better online services and keep them free.

I don’t know too much about the site, other than I think it is pretty new and that the owner is a Zimbabwean web developer specializing in web services and symbian mobile applications based in Edinburgh Scotland.