By John Ward

The fuel crisis continues to hold Zimbabwe in its grip, and its effects are unfortunately felt in the production of this magazine issue. Several interviews were possible at the Logan Cup match in Harare last weekend, between Manicaland and Matabeleland, but transport has not been available for any further ventures.

That match contained several notable feats, where the difference in quality and experience among the players was most evident. Most of the best batting came from former students of the CFX Academy, who have been spread out among the provinces for the final two years of their three-year contracts. Dion Ebrahim and Neil Ferreira stood out far above their colleagues with the bat in the first innings, which both sides completed on the first day. In the fourth innings another former Academy student, Patrick Gada, played a vital role in taking Manicaland through to an unexpected victory, when they required the highest total of the match to win.

INTERVIEWS

Wisdom Siziba: 19-Year-Old Carries His Bat On Debut

The Logan Cup match between Matabeleland and Manicaland at Harare Sports Club last weekend saw several notable achievements, but none more remarkable than that of Matabeleland opening batsman Wisdom Siziba. Wisdom, making his first-class debut as an opening batsman at the age of 19, carried his bat right through the Matabeleland second innings, finishing on 40 not out of a total of 150. He is only the third Zimbabwean batsman to carry his bat through a completed innings in almost 100 years of first-class cricket, following Grant Flower and Mark Dekker.

Surprisingly, his feat of carrying his bat on debut has been achieved on as many as nine previous occasions worldwide, according to statistician Bill Frindall. It cannot be truthfully called a great innings, as he played and missed a number of times and much of the bowling was not of the highest quality - but it was nevertheless a remarkable achievement. Wisdom spoke to John Ward after the match.
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BIOGRAPHY

Meet the Academy players part 5: Alec Taylor

One of the older students at the Academy this year is the Manicaland seam bowler Alec Taylor, who is coming through rather late at the age of 24.

Alec grew up on a farm in the Bvumba Mountains, near Mutare in the Zimbabwe eastern highlands, where his parents moved soon after he was born. His father comes from Northern Ireland where he played some cricket, and he was fortunate in having a very keen cricketer in John Rawlings as a neighbour who gave him much help and encouragement. He remembers playing a lot in the garden with his father when he was young.
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Mark Vermeulen

Mark Vermeulen, former Zimbabwe Under-19 captain, is generally regarded as one of Zimbabwe's most promising young batsmen and has recently been rewarded with a place in the Zimbabwe A team to tour Sri Lanka in April 2000. Unusually for a white Zimbabwean player, Mark has little family background in cricket, although he does have an uncle on his mother's side who is involved in administration in Matabeleland. Coming from an affluent family, though, he has been able to overcome this problem with enough money to help him along financially, attending sound cricketing schools and by his own application and determination.

"With sport these days there are no short cuts," Mark says. "You have to put in a lot of effort and a lot of work if you want to get to the top level, and that's basically what I've been trying to do for the last three or four years that I've been out of school."
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Mark Burmester

Mark Burmester, one of the eleven to play in Zimbabwe's inaugural Test match against India in 1992 and the taker of Zimbabwe's first wicket in Test cricket, may well be remembered more in the future as the man who revived Manicaland cricket. When he returned to Mutare in 1996, cricket in the province had stagnated. With his ability and enthusiasm he revived it, and today captains the province in the Logan Cup competition.

Mark was born in Durban, South Africa, and his father had played a lot of cricket at school without taking it much further. The family moved up to Rhodesia, as the country then was, when Mark was very young. They moved to a small cattle farm where they also did market gardening about ten kilometres from Denis Streak's ranch near Turk Mine in Matabeleland, and he remembers Denis throwing a ball to him in his early years. The family did not stay there long; afflicted by drought, Mark's father got a job in Bulawayo while his mother worked on the farm, and they soon sold up and moved into Bulawayo, and then Mutare.
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