When you imagine sport on the African continent, you envisage a young kid dribbling and swerving across a football pitch. Whether it be the Sahara region, the Ethiopian Highlands, the Savannah, the Swahili Coast, the rainforests, or Southern Africa, the continent is synonymous with the magic of football. But in Zimbabwe, a quintessentially English game has steadily gained popularity.
Dave Houghton, the Zimbabwe cricketer-turned-coach, has seen it all. The many troughs and a few peaks that the country has managed to scale over the past four decades. He was part of the Zimbabwe side that famously defeated Australia in a 1983 World Cup game. Houghton, who became a full-time employee of the Zimbabwe Cricket Union (ZCU) after that tournament, was the mainstay of the batting unit for a period of time. He also led the side and eventually turned out to be a fine coach. Now, back as the coach of Zimbabwe, he is overseeing a resurgence.
Last year, Zimbabwe qualified for the main round of the T20 World Cup, where they went on to pip Pakistan, the eventual runners-up, in a cliff-hanger. A year later, they have started their bid to qualify for the 50-over World Cup on the right note, by beating West Indies, two-time World Cup winners. Due to their unbeaten run in the group stage of the World Cup Qualifiers, Zimbabwe carried four points into the Super Six. After defeating Oman, they are now just a win away from a place in cricket’s biggest white-ball tournament.
“I would say in Zimbabwe, in particular, cricket has become the No.1 sport, which for an African country is amazing, because football is always the popular sport,” Houghton said to RevSportz. “At ground level, there is more equipment. The numbers of players is growing daily. There is so much love for the game at the moment, everybody wants to peay the game. You know, to be honest, our coaches, our development coaches for the last 20 years, are the ones who have produced this team.”
Houghton, who took over as the coach in June 2022, seems to have instilled a new philosophy into Zimbabwe’s players. It is true Zimbabwe have a fine bowling unit – Blessing Muzarabani, Luke Jongwe, Richard Ngarava, Brad Evans, along with enough spin options. Just to emphasise the quality of that unit, they had bundled out the formidable Australian side for a mere 141 in an ODI last year.
On the other hand, despite possessing the likes of Sean Williams, Sean Ervine and Sikandar Raza in their ranks, there is a school of thought that Zimbabwe’s batting unit is a bit shaky under pressure. A case in point would be the last year’s T20 World Cup, where Zimbabwe couldn’t chase down par scores – 154 and 151 – against West Indies and Bangladesh. They subsequently crashed to 117 all out against the Netherlands. A few years earlier, in 2018, Zimbabwe had slipped to a morale-sapping three-run loss to the UAE in a crucial World Cup Qualifier game, which had left their fans in tears. Ervine, the current skipper, could only collect a couple of runs off the last ball.
Zimbabwe seem to have left all those heartbreaks behind them, and are now playing a more fearless brand of cricket. For more evidence of Zimbabwe’s new approach, in the ‘A’ series against Pakistan Shaheens, Zimbabwe Select XI accumulated an imposing total of 385 in the sixth game. The opposition comprised international bowlers like Mohammad Ali and Shahnawaz Dahani.
In the ongoing qualifiers, they overhauled totals of 290 and 315 against Nepal and Netherlands. And that was followed by scores of 268, 408 and 332 against the West Indies, the USA and Oman respectively. Among the batters, Williams is leading the charts with 532 runs.
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“Look, over the last 12 months in particular, we have changed the culture within our team, given a much more positive spin, players taking accountability for their own games,” said Houghton. “We don’t have massive team meetings. People don’t get shouted at when they make mistakes. What it has brought about is incredible trust and confidence. Before I even took over as a coach, I was here working in local cricket, and they have incredible skills. All we need to do is to spin those skills out. And the way to do that was getting them to play with the skills they have got and being happy with the way they play. They are in that position now. It doesn’t guarantee you would win every game, but at the end of the day, we are playing much better cricket. So we should win more than we lose.”
One of the key architects of Zimbabwe’s progress has been Raza. He might be on the wrong side of 30, but Raza is clearly the heartbeat of Zimbabwe cricket at the moment: Let it be scoring runs, taking wickets or plucking catches. The stunning catch Raza pouched to send the dangerous Kashyap Prajapati back to the hut encapsulates his importance to the side.
As Houghton says: “He is a fantastic all-round cricketer. I’m sorry in a way that he is 38, and he is playing his best cricket now. He is a very fit man. In any part of the game, he can win it for us. Takes great catches as a fielder, his bowling is bringing in wickets for us. Of course, when he bats, if it is his day, he not only wins games, but it is entertaining and keeps our crowd at it.”
Zimbabwe had to erase a few other problems that threatened to derail the growth of the game in the country. Many moons ago, on April 16, 2004, 13 white players had gone on strike in the backdrop of complaints related to the make-up of the national selection panel. Zimbabwe also found themselves deep in debt: $27 million. For a while, it seemed as if Zimbabwe cricket was aimlessly travelling through a long and dark tunnel, with no light in sight.
So, in August 2015, when Tavengwa Mukuhlani took charge as the board chairman, he certainly had an uphill task on his hands. But the new leader helped Zimbabwe navigate their way through obstacles, as they became financially stronger. “We had our problems,” said Houghton. “We got ourselves into a lot of debt some years ago. The current board – the chairman and chief executive – have done a magnificent job over four or five years, together with the ICC. We sorted our finances, everything is very rosy in that department.”
Crowds flocking to the stadiums is one of the key parameters to gauge whether the game is in good health or not. Over the last couple of weeks, Zimbabwe’s qualifier games have attracted raucous crowds. In the match against West Indies, every run added to Zimbabwe’s total seemed to be cheered. After every West Indies wicket, the cheers and noise got louder and louder. After the game, Zimbabwe’s players even did a lap of honour to thank the fans.
“Cricket is in the hearts of Zimbabwe fans at the moment,” said Houghton. “The fact that we are doing well on the field as well… cricket is the place to be at now. And the crowd support. We effectively played a dead-rubber game against the USA. It was a Monday, a working day, and you would think there won’t be much crowd in. (But) they were singing and dancing, it was a great atmosphere. Fantastic support just for us, and they have certainly given our players an extra lift.”
Despite all the positive signs, Zimbabwe still have some unfinished business: To stamp their World Cup qualification with a solid performance in the Super Sixes. “We certainly aren’t through the finish line yet, we have a tough second round to go through as well,” said Houghton, whose side take on Sri Lanka, the other favourites for qualification, on Sunday. “I’m very happy, we are playing very good cricket.”
Having taken all the right steps in the last few years, it seems just a matter of time before Zimbabwe realise their immediate dream.