Leading clubs form breakaway league

A report in the Zimbabwe Independent claims that the clubs who earlier this week disaffiliated from the Matabeleland Cricket Association are planning to combine with rebel clubs from Mashonaland to form a new national cricket league.

The action by the Matabeleland clubs was a direct challenge to the way that Peter Chingoka has run Zimbabwe Cricket and was aimed to coincide with him attending the ICC executive meeting in Dubai.

Mashonaland's dispute dates back to last year when six leading sides were expelled from the provincial association. Five of those clubs - Old Hararians, Harare Sports Club, Alexandra, Old Georgians and Universals - have said they will join the breakaway league, and they are joined by four more from Matabeleland - Queens, Bulawayo Sports Club, Bulawayo Athletics Club and Crescent. The Mashonaland and Matabeleland Country Districts sides and Midlands' Kwekwe Sports Club have also thrown in their lot with the rebels.

The league aim to draw up a new structure in the coming days, and the article reported that the organisers were confident of landing a sponsor.

"We are no longer in a position to negotiate with them (ZC)," one club official was quoted as saying. "We've made our stand. As for the ICC, they have not made a decision which will improve our situation. They have showed they do not care about Zimbabwe." A dossier sent to Ehsan Mani, the ICC president, on behalf of the provincial chairman ahead of the meeting has yet to be answered.

This development leaves Zimbabwe Cricket without any credible domestic structure. The Faithwear Cup, the one-day tournament which took place in February, was dogged by substandard performances, and the Logan Cup, the first-class competition, has been indefinitely postponed.

Alhough the bulk of the country's rank-and-file players have defected, those will national ambitions will need to switch to one of the clubs still loyal to ZC. But the standard in those will, aside from the top players, be woefully poor - as evidenced by the Mashonaland team in the Faithwear Cup - and it will make official domestic tournaments almost impossible to stage with any degree of credibility.