Western Region secure franchise

[zimfan1]

Western Region secure franchise

By Ricky Zililo



ZIMBABWE Cricket Western Region made up of Bulawayo Metropolitan and Matabeleland South Provinces have come up with a franchise name — Matabeleland Tuskers — that would be presented to the public soon, Chronicle Sport can exclusively reveal.
Impeccable sources told the paper that Matabeleland Tuskers' logo is a big elephant with the mighty Victoria Falls background and they will use blue and navy as their colours.
“The management have agreed on the name, logo and colours for the Western Region franchise. The name Matabeleland Tuskers and everything else is going to be unveiled to the province's community soon at a colourful ceremony. The guys are planning a big function and want to announce this historic moment together as one (committee),” said the source.
The franchise system was introduced to the local cricket by ZC in May after recommendations from the International Cricket Council.
Five franchises were created to run first-class cricket in the country.
ZC named the following as franchise chief executive officers: Stanley Staddon will run Westerns/Matabeleland Tuskers with Hugo Ribatika named as Northerns', the largest franchise; Givemore Makoni will be in charge of Southerns and Kenyon Ziehl is boss at Centrals. The only outstanding appointment is that of the Easterns chief executive.
ZC said they introduced the franchise system to decentralise the administration of cricket in the country by creating independent administrative bodies, and also as a way of commercialising the game throughout the country.
South Africa adopted the franchise system in 2004 to create strong teams that would make the standard of competition top level and at the same time improve domestic cricket.
The move paid dividends and has seen more players coming from those franchise teams to make it into the Proteas squad thereby forming a strong national team as the gap between domestic and international competition was bridged.
The franchise is the commercial arm of a provincial association which is responsible for running the province's first-class team, which is considered the first stage of professional cricket before a player breaks into the national side. The province still runs lower level cricket such as clubs and schools, and a provincial team.
The franchises require financial independence by attracting lucrative sponsorship from businesses, so they can go about their activities without interference from anyone.
The franchise system has a potential of uplifting the sport as the companies that buy the name would be expected to fund the teams and that would work as a way of preparing cricketers for the national team.
With the local economy slowly picking up, it is projected that sponsors would fall over each other to bankroll the sport and with good marketing, they (sponsors) in turn will get an average mileage.
Efforts to get comment from the Western Region franchise chief executive officer Staddon were fruitless as he was said to be out of the country.

[brmtaylor.com admin]

http://www.brmtaylor.com/news-161.html

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brmtaylor.com can reveal that former IT manager and national team match analyst, Anesu Kafesu, has replaced Givemore Makoni as the national team manager. Makoni was recently appointed CEO of the Southern franchise, which is set to be named the Southern Rocks. It is unknown why this name was chosen, as Zimbabwe's famous balancing rocks are in Epworth near Harare.

Any ideas about the Southern Rocks name?

[maehara]

Don't like it. Not sure what a good alternative will be, though. Most notable landmarks in that part of the country are the Great Zimbabwe ruins ("Southern Ruins" doesn't quite cut it..!) and a couple of national parks that are most famous for their elephants - and Westerns have already picked that theme...

Hmm. Southerns includes Matabeleland South, which has the Limpopo river.. Southern Crocs, maybe? Or would that be a self-fulfilling prophecy?

As for the others: Eastern Highlanders seems a given, I'd go for Northern Capitals (the Harare link there).
Have no idea for Centrals.

[Kopje]

Don't like it. Not sure what a good alternative will be, though. Most notable landmarks in that part of the country are the Great Zimbabwe ruins ("Southern Ruins" doesn't quite cut it..!) and a couple of national parks that are most famous for their elephants - and Westerns have already picked that theme...

Hmm. Southerns includes Matabeleland South, which has the Limpopo river.. Southern Crocs, maybe? Or would that be a self-fulfilling prophecy?

As for the others: Eastern Highlanders seems a given, I'd go for Northern Capitals (the Harare link there).
Have no idea for Centrals.

Central Steelers maybe, coz of the industries (Zisco Steel) in both mining and manufacturing in the Midlands area.