The ManicaPost
Fungayi Munyoro Sports Correspondent
The second edition of the Tino Mawoyo Junior Development Cricket Festival is expected to feature four local teams and a team from Mozambique.
The Chevrons and Mountaineers batsman, Mawoyo has been bankrolling the tournament and he intends to make it even bigger and better by adding a Mozambican primary school.
“I visited Centro Educacional Njerere School in Chimoio recently to make arrangements that they will take part in this year’s edition. It is going to be a better and bigger event this time around.
“I met with the children and conducted a training session and they played a game at the end of the training. I met with the school authorities and they are willing to take part in this year’s edition,” he said.
The Tino Mawoyo Junior Cricket Development Festival was launched last September with the aim of developing cricket in under privileged communities. It also aims at identifying, exposing, developing and fostering the abundant cricketing talent in the country. The main target of the festival is the children under the age of 13 from high density areas.
Last year, the festival was characterized by lot of activities. It started with a girls training conducted by Zimbabwe Cricket Junior development coach Chipo Kanjanda where a total of 21 girls took part in the basic cricket training.
There was an umpiring seminar which was conducted by international umpire Jeremiah Matibiri.
There was also a leadership training conducted by Sports Leadership Institute of Zimbabwe for all the participating children. The three day festival ended with four Under-13 boys’ teams taking part in the 15 over games. All the four teams got away with floating trophies.
There were also individual prizes where Takudzwa Matiringe was voted best fielder and Kimberly Mutsogoro was voted best wicket–keeper. Brendon Mutendi was voted the best bowler while Panashe Chikwetu was voted the best batsman. Akeeb Patel was voted the most promising player and Takudzwa Nyamugure was voted player of the festival.
This year’s edition will be held at Mutare Sports Club in early September.
