By John Ward

The triangular tournament in South Africa is over and Zimbabwe were washed out rather than knocked out, sadly unable to play what was in effect a semi-final against England because of the weather. Both teams therefore finished level on points, but England made it to the final against South Africa thanks to a superior run rate. This can hardly have satisfied anybody, since the South Africans made no provision for a reserve day.

I try to be realistic about the Zimbabwe team's chances, and I would have made England slight favourites to win that 'semi-final' match, simply because Zimbabwe so often play at their worst when under those sort of pressure situations.
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INTERVIEW

Dirk Viljoen on the final of the UCBSA Bowl competition

On Saturday 5 February the Zimbabwe Board XI met Free State B in the final of the UCBSA Bowl competition at Harare Sports Club. The nerve of the home side's top order batsmen failed them, but thanks to a fine 51 by Dirk Viljoen they came close before eventually going down by 5 runs. Here Dirk talks to John Ward about the match, and also contributes some interesting ideas on future developments in cricket in Zimbabwe.

"As I said to Trevor [Penney, the coach] after the game, "The worst thing about it is that no one even came close to beating us during the season during the one-day competition, and it would have been better losing a game earlier and winning the final." To have beaten everybody by such a big margin and then coming and losing the final"
[More | Scorecard | Report]

BIOGRAPHY

Colin Bland
Alwyn Pichanick

Following a request for information from one of our readers, Beverly Treml of the United Kingdom, we are very grateful to Alwyn Pichanick, a past president of the Zimbabwe Cricket Union and during Colin's career for Rhodesia frequently a selector and manager of the national team, for his willingness to write an article about Colin, whom he knew well.

"During his career he became acknowledged as the greatest fielder of all time up to that date. He was nicknamed 'the Golden Eagle' for the way in which he swooped on balls in the field and returned them with unerring accuracy to the wicket-keeper. He also had an uncanny ability to score direct hits on the wicket after throwing whilst running at full pace. His most famous dismissals were at Lord's against England in 1965 when both Jim Parks and Ken Barrington were run out with direct hits at the bowler's end from midwicket with throws made while Colin was running towards the wicket-keeper's end."
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HISTORY

The Flourishing Fawns

The recent Zimbabwe Under-15 team to tour South Africa, the Fawns, enjoyed considerable success. Here we reprint an article from the Sunday Mail of 26 January 1969, which traces the origins of the Fawns team in Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia). The article was written by Glen Byrom.

Rhodesian cricket is beginning to reap a rich harvest from the Fawns organisation. The seeds were sown about 16 years ago by Mr L H 'Weary' Maxwell, Mr E T 'Teddy' Bridges and Mr George Wells, and have grown into a prize crop. Testimony to this was the composition of the recent Rhodesian Nuffield team, which included nine ex-Fawns.
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Picture of the Week

Guy Whittall
Photo © ZCU

Zimbabwe pacemen meet Dennis Lillee

Two of Zimbabwe's most promising young pace bowlers, David Mutendera and Douglas Hondo, have just returned from a ten-day coaching course under Dennis Lillee at the MRF Pace Bowling Foundation in Chennai (formerly Madras). Both are members of Universals Sports Club; Doug is a member of the CFX Cricket Academy in Zimbabwe, while David was there last year. In this interview with John Ward at the Academy headquarters at Country Club, Harare, they talk about their experiences there.

"People may think that because we've been to Dennis Lillee they can expect a lot from us. But we're not computers that have been programmed. It's something that will come as time goes on. We've got most of the things he taught us, but we're still working on them. As soon as we get it right we can feel it, and it becomes subconscious. But at the moment sometimes we do it right, sometimes we do it wrong."
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LETTERS

This week - fans in Zimbabwe and overseas celebrate Zimbabwe's win over South Africa, comments on team selection and much more.
[Your letters | Contact us]

INTERNATIONAL

ICC Emerging Nations tournament

Tony Munro reports for CricInfo on this new tournament that will take place in Zimbabwe in April. Zimbabwe 'A' will open proceedings against Denmark, with Scotland, Ireland, Kenya, and the Netherlands being the other participants. [Report]

DOMESTIC CRICKET

SCHOOLS

Thanks very much for Victoria High of Masvingo, who have sent us a report on their 1999 season. We look forward to hearing how their team is progressing this year. We still encourage other schools to send in reports. We have just received news that a cricket team has been started at Arundel Girls School in Harare, an unfortunately rare occurrence in Zimbabwe, and we hope to bring more news of this in our next issue.

St. Johns report

Peter Whalley reports on the St. Johns match v Prince Edward

The fact that this game took place at all was due largely to the efforts of the St. Johns ground staff who were able to ensure that the game started at 9:30. St. Johns captain Stephen Wright won an important toss (his first win of the season, much to the amazement of his team-mates) and elected to field on a wicket that was firm but, as water had got under the covers at the one end, batting conditions were likely to be difficult.
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Victoria High School (Masvingo, Zimbabwe) cricket report for 1999
B Mahwire and Shumbaimwe Jax

The 1999 season was a big success to the upcoming and well motivated young cricket teams of Victoria High.

The first team comprised Blessing Mahwire and Robertson Chinyengetere, both of the sixth form; Enock Makwara, Munyaradzi Muusha, Takawira Mundure and Enock Mugwagwa, all of the fourth form; Tapiwa Muzorori and Steven Chiuta, both of the third form; Hillary Matanga and Tinashe Chitsaka, both of the second form; and Jemton Chinyengetere of the first form. They started off the season on a high note. They won all their league matches and drew with a school from South Africa, St Martin's High School in Johannesburg.
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CLUB NEWS - Vigne Cup Scores and Reports

The Vigne Cup is contested only by teams from Harare, and matches are scheduled throughout the season, interspersed between the national league matches.

The Vigne Cup resumed on Sunday in Harare with the weather once again looking ominous. Although the rain did play a role, fortunately a result was achieved in each of the three matches. [More..]