Double Headers

124 Zimbabwe - Late starters him were still playing for the Under-24s the following year, but they were both ‘out-dated’ by Australian-born Shaun Prescott, who had played two matches for Victoria in 1989/90 and who made his debut for Mashonaland Under-24s in March 1995 when nearer his 29th birthday than his 28th. The renaming of the side as ‘Young Mashonaland’ for the 1995/96 season was perhaps done to address such inconsistencies, though in fact the oldest player in the side in that year (Grant Flower) was only 25 when the season began. The distinction between ‘young’ and ‘old’ also does not seem to have been maintained very rigidly, with the best players going to the ‘Mashonaland’ side even if their age qualified them for the age-group sides. Thus for example, in that 1995/96 season, five of the players who appeared for ‘Mashonaland’ were younger than Grant Flower, and as many as seven of the 15 cricketers who turned out for ‘Young Mashonaland’ were older than the youngest players in the ‘Mashonaland’ squad. Finally, on the ‘Country Districts’ issue, it seems that birthplace alone was very definitely not the key qualification. Of the 17 cricketers who played for MCD in 1993/94, 13 are shown in the ‘usual sources’ as having been born in Salisbury, two more in Bulawayo, and only two somewhere else in Zimbabwe. In 1994/95 the figures were 12 from Salisbury, 4 fromBulawayo, 1 from South Africa and 4 from elsewhere in Zimbabwe; in 1995/96 those figures became 10, 2, 1 and 6 respectively. What the MCD players’ other links - if any - to the more rural parts of Mashonaland Province might have been is not known to the present writer. As in Pakistan (but not in South Africa), when the province had more than one side in the Logan Cup competition, players were allocated, by whatever means, to a particular squad at the start of the season, and there was no movement of players between different teams during that season. Also as in Pakistan but not South Africa, there was no restriction on sides from the same province playing against each other: indeed, with so few teams taking part, the whole competition would have broken down were such a restriction in place. During the relevant seasons, matches in the Logan Cup were generally played in a series of ‘rounds’, with each round beginning on the same day. This has therefore given rise to several double-headers in Zimbabwean domestic cricket: 19 in all, including 12 instances of ‘internal’ matches between two sides from Mashonaland, and six occasions when two Mashonaland sides were playing simultaneous matches, both of which were at home. Seven of the first eight instances were triple-headers, with three Mashonaland sides playing simultaneously. Here are the details of all 19 instances: Season Play dates Fixture Venue Winners 1993/94 14-15-16 Jan* Mash CD v Mash Harare S D 14-15-16 Jan Mat v Mash U-24 Bulawayo Dn 1993/94 11-12-13 Feb* Mash v Mash U-24 Harare SC U-24 11-12-13 Feb Mat v Mash CD Bulawayo Mat