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One on One with Peter Chingoka, Zimbabwe's Cricket board chairman

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By Tawanda Jonas, on February 26 2008 22:47

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Peter Chingoka, Zimbabwe Cricket's board chairman offered the following interview.

How far is Zimbabwe from becoming a Test side again?

There have been a few four-day matches, some with promising performances. There has been that yes, but we must remember, all this time we have really played most of our cricket at home. If not at home, we have played the four-day games in South Africa. This is the first chance we have had to play outside, so after this, after this series in Pakistan, we go home, we regroup and we take stock of where we are. A key indicator of progress will be the domestic system's ability to constantly produce players for international cricket.

How viable is the domestic cricket structure currently?

There are reports that standards are not very high right now. The standard is reasonably good and improving all the time. It is not yet perfect. We do need some additional resources. By that I mean possibly bringing in one or two players from outside Zimbabwe to play so that it helps younger players. Kenya playing last year [in the Logan Cup] was useful. Also, we could look at Namibia taking part and helping us as much as helping themselves as well. We are also playing in the South African competition. So we are playing tough cricket where the players learn the hard way.

Robin Brown, Zimbabwe's coach, said recently that schools cricket and the academy and Under-19 structures were doing some good work. Tell us a little more about that?

We have an academy which operates, but the structures were burned down unfortunately. We are in the process of repairing that now. We take youngsters between the age of 17 and 23, those with promise and potential to be high performers, and we take them through not just the different facets of cricket, but we make them rounded people. Things like public speaking, how they control their financial management, know more about diets and nutrition and sports psychology. The positive side is obviously from our administration point of view, that we have a much more stable version now. It's a structure that covers all the four corners of the country, which was not the case before. We now have ten provincial associations that are active. We followed the government in imitation, where we have ten provinces and all of them are active. Most of them are solid first-class anyway, when they are on, and in all aspects they are carrying out serious progressive programmes. From a structural point of view we are better off now and the quality is just what we have to work on now. Before we only had five provincial associations and of those five we had an additional two that were only involved in districts cricket.

A player who was involved in the Exodus in 2003-04 has said that to a different degree both players and administrators were to blame for what happened. He also suggested that a more serious, mature attempt to integrate black players could have been made by the team. How do you feel about that?

Before I answer your question, Zimbabwe must be such an interesting subject that a 2004 story seems to be news still. Why is this? I never hear anybody raking up old quotes about Australia when they had their problems between players and administrators, but Zimbabwe seems to be a topical nation. Fashionable. Well, that is his opinion and he is entitled to one. I said to you earlier that there were some people prior to 2006 who believed that cricket is a game for only one sector of the community. There is no way one could accept that. There is no way one could accept that you don't give equal opportunities to everybody who makes himself available to play for their country. That is where the board stood, that is where the board stands now. And I am sure incoming boards in the future will stand for this, to say: equal opportunities for all people that are Zimbabweans.

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