NEWLY appointed Zimbabwe senior national cricket team coach Alan Butcher last Friday visited Bulawayo where he met with Matabeleland Tuskers players at Queens Sports Club.
Butcher, who took over the reigns from Walter Chawaguta, arrived from his native United Kingdom to take up his post.
On Friday, he had a training session at Queens with Christopher Mpofu, Andy Blignaut and Charles Coventry, the only Tuskers players who are in the Zimbabwean squad for the International Cricket Council World Twenty20 set for West Indies at the end of this month.
He later had a chat with all the Tuskers players in the presence of their coach Robin Brown and national team bowling coach Heath Streak.
The 56-year-old Englishman has a tough task of leading Zimbabwe at the ICC World Twenty20. Zimbabwe are in the same group with heavyweights New Zealand and Sri Lanka.
Meanwhile, the Zimbabwe squad leaves for the Caribbean today where they will play warm up matches against West Indies A, Pakistan and Australia before the start of the ICC World Twenty20.
Under Brown in 2007, Zimbabwe caused a shock at the first edition of the ICC World Twenty20 when they beat Australia by five wickets in their first match. Zimbabwe missed the last edition of the competition held in England last year after Zimbabwe Cricket agreed to forfeit the country’s place following the British government’s failure to guarantee that they would issue visas to the Zimbabwean delegation to enter the United Kingdom.