The CFX Academy for 2001 only opened at the beginning of February, so the Logan Cup finds most of the players recently out of school and not best prepared for first-class cricket as a team. Coach Dave Houghton talks to John Ward.

Our squad is 15 players at the moment, but Sean Ervine is on the injury list so he probably won't be playing for the next six weeks. He has cartilage damage in his left knee and he may have to have an operation next week. We don't expect to have much use of him for the rest of this particular season.

The rest of the squad is as follows:

Ryan Butterworth. Right-hand bat who has been opening for Old Hararians. Quite a good strokeplayer and a good fielder as well. He tends to get out a lot in the thirties and forties. He played quite a crucial role with his innings of 33 to help Old Hararians win the national league last Sunday – but again got out in the thirties, so we have some work to do encouraging him to compile big scores rather than just getting good starts.

Nyasha Chari. A right-arm medium-pace bowler. He swings the ball out and has good control. Again, he has played quite a bit of cricket this season for Old Hararians first team, so he is reasonably experienced in adult cricket. His bowling is quite effective but he could do with an extra yard of pace. He doesn't hold a bat very well at the moment, so we have to try and work on that as well. He's not the best in the field, so those are the areas we will be working on with him.

Ian Coulson. He's from Bulawayo and plays for Queens as a left-arm spinner. He bowls well and gives the ball a good turn, but tends to bowl a little flat at times, probably the result of only having played one-day cricket. We have to teach him how to give the ball more air and try to get people out rather than stop them scoring runs. He also needs a bit of work on his batting; he really is a proper tailender.

Guy Croxford. He plays for Harare Sports Club. He has been out of school for a couple of years now and was probably one of the most successful players in the last Under-19 World Cup. He is a good top-order batsman with a nice solid technique. I think you'll find it's a general problem with most of these players at the moment to try to teach them to score hundreds – lots of nice fifties and sixties but nothing that goes on. He bowls a bit of right-arm medium-pace which we can develop, and is a good fielder. He's probably the senior member of the squad, and we might work a bit on his captaincy as well.

Keith Dabengwa. He's from Bulawayo, a slow left-arm spinner who bowls with good control. Again, he has been fed a diet of one-day cricket all his career, so we're going to have to teach him to get people out. He is quite a solid left-hand batsman in the middle order. I don't know a lot about his results at the moment but he impressed us just by watching him play, so there's lots of potential to work on there.

Terrence Duffin. Our other opening batsman, a left-hander. He captained the Zimbabwe Under-19s this year very successfully. He himself did not have a great time with the bat, although he did get two scores above 50 against Natal. He has lots of courage, gets into line well and looks a good solid opening batsman. He also bowls some right-arm medium-pace as well. He's a very knowledgeable young cricketer and there is lots of potential there.

Justin Lewis. A left-arm seam bowler from the Midlands, who has played for Kwekwe Sports Club this season with me. He's fairly small in stature, but hopefully he will get a little taller. He is medium-fast, hits the deck quite hard, and has a tendency at the moment to move the ball away from right-handers, which is a nice variation, but at the moment it's his stock ball, so we need to teach him to swing the ball in as well. He also needs a bit of work on his batting; it doesn't look as if anyone has tried to help him on the batting side at all. A good fielder.

Campbell McMillan. A very promising all-rounder who hits the ball miles; a very aggressive strokeplayer but tends to play too many shots when he's batting. He's also a very useful up-and-coming quick bowler; he bowls with aggression and is quite fast. He played with the national Under-19 side over the Christmas period and had some really good results, so he's one for the future.

Blessing Mahwire. He comes to us from Masvingo, one of our ZCU scholarship kids through Masvingo School. He played for the Zimbabwe Under-19 side this year; he made the side as a more than capable medium-fast bowler, but his batting has really come on of late and I could class him now in the genuine all-rounder category. When he originally joined the Academy I put him down as a number 10 or 11 batsman; in fact, he's a middle-order batsman.

Andre Neethling. He is a leg-spin bowler and top-order batsman from Old Georgians. He tends to bowl one bad ball an over, so consistency needs to be worked on there. He gives the ball a good turn and he has the capabilities to get batsmen out. I was really impressed when I watched him bat against us in league this year. He has good footwork, good powers of concentration and plays the ball late, which is always a sign of a good cricketer. So he has lots of potential.

Barney Rogers. A left-handed top-order batsman who did very well for the Under-19s over the Christmas period. He has scored runs against most of the sides we have played against. He also bowls off-spin, and bowls them pretty well. I think in his case it's again just a matter of converting seventies and eighties to hundreds. He's been taking his off-spinning department pretty casually and I think he's a better spinner than that, and we'll work quite hard to turn him into a decent off-spinner. It would be nice for the national side to have an off-spinner who can bat – or just an off-spinner!

Wisdom Siziba. He's from Bulawayo and has been playing for Mac Club in the first league, batting at number four or five. He's the wicket-keeper for our squad as well. He has very good hands, a solid little keeper and quite an impressive little batsman. He's small in stature and quite thin, and we're working quite hard to get him to put a bit of power behind his shots and hit the ball through the covers a bit more cleanly.

Leon Soma. He's from Manicaland, right-arm medium-fast. He has taken quiet a few wickets for Manicaland this season and been very impressive. He can bowl with a genuine lick of pace, generally swings the ball out to right-handers and is quite aggressive. He's an excellent fielder and hits the ball strongly lower down the order. The little I've seen of them in the Academy so far, he looks one of the most impressive bowlers we have, both for control and pace.

Matthew Townshend. From Bulawayo, son of former national off-spinning all-rounder Derrick Townshend. He's been playing his cricket at Bulawayo Athletic Club in the national second league, fairly successfully. He's a big strong lad with strong shoulders; he bowls medium-fast, mainly inswingers to right-handers, so we're going to work on getting him a leg-cutter or an outswinger as a variation. He's also quite a strong striker of the ball lower down in the order. He's a little bit slow in the field, and we can get him to work on his speed and agility.

The side has a lot of potential and I hope they'll play well. I will not be playing myself. The Academy is an educational place and they must all play; that's where they will learn the most. All we are going to try and do with our squad of 15 – 14 now that Sean Ervine can't play – is to give everyone a minimum of three games. There's no such thing as a strongest team or anything like that; we're going to try and rotate it. We'd love to win the Logan Cup, but at the same time we'd like to win it with everybody playing.

We don't have a fulltime captain in the Academy. There will be a different captain in every game. We have quite a few to choose from who have the right credentials – Duffin has done a bit of captaincy and so have Croxford, Dabengwa, McMillan, Rogers and Soma. There are quite a few with captaincy potential there, but that's the way we're working it, so that everybody gets a crack at everything.

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