News Day
By Daniel Nhakaniso
15 January 2013
ZIMBABWE national cricket team coach Alan Butcher has conceded that the ongoing row over the appointment of national selectors has overshadowed the upcoming tour of the West Indies next month.
The Sports and Recreation Commission last week issued a directive on the appointment of national selectors in all sporting disciplines emphasising the need to have former players’ involvement.
But that has led to allegations of racism between Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture David Coltart and Zimbabwe Cricket convenor of selectors Givemore Makoni.
“Obviously it is the most topical issue in local cricket right now but I sincerely hope that it won’t affect our preparations. We will definitely talk to the players, but I’m not sure it will affect them because their job is just to play the game,†Butcher said.
Butcher chose to focus more on the forthcoming tour and believes the wet weather currently prevailing in the country has deprived local players of some much-needed game time for their franchises ahead of the tour of the Caribbean.
Heavy rains have resulted in the abandonment of a number of domestic matches over the last couple of weeks with latest being the Pro50 and Twenty20 matches in Triangle and Mutare at the weekend which were all washed out.
In an interview with NewsDay Sport yesterday, Butcher, who has been following the domestic matches with keen interest to assess his national team players, said: “We were hoping that the players would be playing first-class cricket to remain in shape ahead of the tour, but obviously the weather has not been kind to us.
“It’s not something that we can control, but hopefully the situation will improve soon as there is still some time before we start camp.â€
Butcher, who will step down after the West Indies tour, said full camp ahead of the tour would commence on February 4.This will give the national team’s technical department less than two weeks of intensive training before their departure for the month-long tour which will run from February 20 to March 20.
The soft-spoken Englishman, who turned 58 last week, said he was happy with the composition of the squad announced last week, saying he was hopeful that the omission of Elton Chigumbura would help the player to work on his game.
“There are some established members of the team who haven’t been producing the performances expected from them. Elton (Chigumbura) has been one of those players which is the main reason why he missed out.
“I’ve spoken to the player and I’m hoping it will give him some time to work on his game and come back strongly. It has happened to Vusi Sibanda and Hamilton Masakadza before and they have all came back stronger,†he said.