Playing Powerhouse England In Test Cricket Has Been Years In The Making For Zimbabwe

When small cricket nation Zimbabwe finally ends a 22-year Test drought against powerhouse England on Thursday, Tavengwa Mukuhlani will be emotional sitting in the terraces at Trent Bridge in Nottingham.

He will feel a sense of pride after working tirelessly for a decade as Zimbabwe Cricket’s chair to restart bilateral ties with England. “It’s a sense of achievement on the part of Zimbabwe Cricket,” Mukuhlani told me in a phone interview on the eve of the one-off Test running from May 22-26.

“We have worked many years to get this goal fulfilled and it is a dream come true for all of us.”

The two countries have not played each other in Tests since 2003, bilaterally since 2004 and not at all since September 2007, when they had met in the inaugural T20 World Cup. The relationship has long proved thorny due to strained political ties during the latter years of the reign of Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe.

While Zimbabwe’s political situation has changed since Mugabe was ousted from power in 2017, the country’s cricket team struggled to unshackle itself from the political interference that started eroding the team in the early 2000s leading to the infamous player revolt in 2004.

Zimbabwe in 2019 became the first Full Member cricket nation to be suspended from the International Cricket Council and their funding from the sport’s governing body was frozen.

But through plenty of work behind the scenes by Mukuhlani and his fellow administrators, and as the political scene became less volatile, Zimbabwe’s governing body stabilized leading to a revival of the national team in recent years.

However, it’s been a battle for Zimbabwe to play Test cricket due to soaring financial costs associated with hosting the five-day format and reluctance from cash cows England, India and Australia to play them.

India and Australia have at least played bilateral white-ball series against Zimbabwe in recent years, but resuming ties with England proved tough. After entering the hot seat in 2015, Mukuhlani was keen to engage in discussions but the spectre of Mugabe loomed large.

Mugabe’s ousting seemed a game-changer, but it still took until the start of this decade for discussions to start progressing before this one-off Test was finally agreed upon.

England’s cricket board are helping cover some of the tour costs for Zimbabwe, a smaller cricket nation who get significantly less funding from the International Cricket Council than their richer counterpart.

England, so too India and Australia, are also armed with a billion dollar domestic broadcast deal compared to Zimbabwe’s rather measly $2.5 million per annum from theirs.

“The bigger nations have a big responsibility to take care of the smaller ones to ensure Test cricket flourishes widely,” Mukuhlani said.

Zimbabwe are not in the current nine-team World Test Championship and have mostly had to play against the other countries not part of the competition – Ireland and Afghanistan.

But Zimbabwe have been determined to become an established Test side and this year will play 11 Tests – the most by any nation along with Australia – that includes a two-Test visit by South Africa next month.

Mukuhlani, an influential figure on the ICC board, has been part of a working group focusing on current and future FTP bilateral planning arrangements. Another such committee is in the works looking at cricket’s various formats, including Test cricket and perhaps tweaking the WTC.

Mukuhlani is against a two division proposal unless it has promotion and relegation, but hopes a fairer structure can be worked out for Test cricket and ironed out in time for the post 2025-27 WTC cycle.

“There have been genuine problems with the FTP structure, but there is a lot of work being done to find solutions because the smaller countries deserve to play Test cricket,” he said.

“We have shown we want to play Test cricket, but it isn’t easy hosting matches which costs around $500,000 per Test. So there has to be a way to help with the costs along with setting up domestic structures and A-tour pathways.”

There is a lot of momentum for Zimbabwean cricket, with the sport in the landlocked southern African country spreading beyond its white, middle-upper class roots. It has also become a destination for major events, having hosted four international tournaments in recent years.

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Underlining its increased gravitas among power brokers, Zimbabwe also held the all-important ICC quarterly meetings recently.

For so many Zimbabweans, the thought of playing a power nation again in Test cricket appeared a pipedream as the years rolled on. But that long exile finally ends and they are now dreaming big.

“I think the players will pull some surprises and will equip themselves very well on the big stage,” Mukuhlani said. “It is the start of hopefully an uptick for Zimbabwe’s Test team.”