By John Ward

Welcome to the 8th issue of Zimbabwe cricket's weekly on-line magazine. With the home international season all but over, it has become a little less easy to obtain material for our online magazine. We concentrate now on domestic cricket, but are still getting no feedback from the various provincial organisations and at present little from the schools. Unfortunately this makes it difficult to keep ourselves informed about cricket at those levels, let alone the rest of the world. We will keep trying, but please, if our readers have any requests for news of particular schools or anywhere else, please let us know - it might just persuade our desired correspondents to correspond!

We would like to thank Clive Ruffell, of Harare, very much for taking over the section on club news, and he has done a fine job in this issue contacting the first-league clubs to gather information about the club matches played last weekend. One of the stars of that round of matches was the evergreen Ali Shah, still a match-winner at the age of 40 and still one of the finest gentlemen of the game you are ever likely to find. We took this opportunity to interview him and construct a biography of his long career - 25 years in the Harare first league, 19 of them as captain, as well as a national career which for various reasons did not quite live up to its potential.

We also conducted an interview with Darlington Matambanadzo, the 'forgotten' twin of Everton, who was at one time considered the more promising of the two. This was in answer to a request from Mr Khalid Vayani, who wanted to know what was happening to Darlington and whether he still had ambitions of playing Test cricket. Requests from readers are always welcome, so please do not hesitate to make them and we will do our best to oblige.

INTERVIEW

The Forgotten Matambanadzo?

Years ago, when Mark Waugh was trying in vain to win a place in the Australian Test team alongside his twin brother Steve, he was nicknamed Afghanistan (the forgotten Waugh). Everton Matambanadzo also has a twin brother whom many seem to have forgotten.

"I bowl as much as I've always done, but where I lost ground I think was that I didn't develop that mental strength early enough. I had setbacks and didn't know how to handle them. Throughout my cricketing career, for example at high school, it was very easy for me, and I can't ever remember having a loss of form or setbacks."
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INTERNATIONAL

The South African Triangular

John Ward looks forward to the Zimbabwean tour to South Africa for the triangular tournament which also includes England, and sounds out Andy Flower for his expectations.

"I think there was perhaps a slight touch of complacency, which may sound strange in our situation, but as you say maybe people thought all the hard work had been done. It never will be for our country, or for any sporting country. And as you start to get complacent, you will start making mistakes. We can't afford that at all; our discipline levels and our motivational levels have to be at a peak - or else we won't compete with these sides."
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Under 19 news

The Zimbabwe under-19s are in the throes of the under-19 World Cup in Sri Lanka. CricInfo has extensive coverage of this tournament - to date Zimbabwe have lost one match but re-bounded to beat the Americas. They played two warm up matches in Sri Lanka with mixed results.

ZIMBABWE v COLOMBO DIVISION 1 SCHOOLS
Zimbabwe 170 (50 overs) (T Taibu 34, M Nkala 47, M Munson 18, C Brewer 17). Colombo Division 1 Schools 101 all out (28 overs) (G Ewing 4/18, M Nkala 3/11). Zimbabwe won by 69 runs.

ZIMBABWE v PANADURA MAANS CRICKET CLUB
Zimbabwe 137 (43.5 overs) (C Brewer 22, S Ervine 20, A Maregwede 19). Panadura Maans Cricket Club 141/2 (25.4 overs) (S Ervine 1/37). Zimbabwe lost by eight wickets.
[U-19 World Cup]

STATISTICS

We've updated more Zimbabwe statistics, including the one-day records.

Zimbabwe official limited over international records
Andy Flower's complete Test records

BIOGRAPHIES
Ali Shah

Zimbabwe's first official international match was their World Cup game against Australia in 1983, when they astounded the cricket world with a 13-run victory. With the recent retirement of Kevin Curran, none of that team is still active in first-class cricket, but there is one member who still plays first-league club cricket in Harare and is still able to turn in match-winning performances. This is Ali Shah, the first player from outside the white community to represent the country's first cricket team, and one who has always brought credit to his team wherever he has played.
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