PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe will next month officiate at the ground-breaking ceremony of a 10 000-seater cricket stadium mooted by the Victoria Falls Town Council.
NOKUTHABA DLAMINI OWN CORRESPONDENT
This was revealed when the International Cricket Council (ICC) World Cup trophy was paraded in the streets of the resort town yesterday as part of a tour of all ICC member countries ahead of the 2015 tournament.
The trophy came from South Africa en route to Singapore before finally arriving at the World Cup host country Australia.
In an interview on the sidelines of the event, Zimbabwe Cricket (ZC) chairman Wilson Manase said they chose to build a cricket stadium in Victoria Falls as a way of generating revenue from tourism.
“This is as it should be because this is not a ZC or ICC event, but a Zimbabwean event starting in Victoria Falls. And it starts here because we took the decision to bring the Cricket World Cup icon to another world icon – the Victoria Falls,” Manase said.
“We did this so that we could help market the holiday resort and do our bit for the fiscus by helping to generate revenue from tourism.
“We deliberately chose Victoria Falls because the game is liked by tourists and they will be coming to watch games here in the near future. It is very hot and some of the countries where we play cricket such as Bangladesh, India and Australia sometimes get hot and humid, so we want our players to acclimatise to some of the similar regions where we play cricket,” he said.
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However, the idea of constructing a cricket stadium has attracted mixed feelings from the local authority which questioned the sincerity of ZC in building at the venue since their allocated land had been lying idle for the past four years.
But Manase assured the community that the project would be achieved.
“The engineering drawings are already in place and the president will come and perform the ground breaking ceremony in November. We have to source the money, but if we look at our country, it’s under sanctions and we don’t have money, but l can assure you that we will definitely build,” he said.
“We also don’t have donors because of the sanctions and also Zimra (Zimbabwe Revenue Authority), takes all the money through duty even if the goods will be donated.”
The trophy was received and paraded by Zimbabwe senior cricket players – batsmen Hamilton Masakadza and Brendan Taylor and right-arm off breaker bowler Prosper Utseya.
