The Sunday Mail
THE most experienced hands may not be the safest as far as the Zimbabwe cricket team is concerned ahead of the two match Test series against West Indies in Bulawayo.
Nyasha Mayavo’s inexperienced Test cricket hands could be trusted with keeping wicket against the touring Windies.
Nyasha who?
The Mid West Rhinos wicketkeeper turned 25 at the beginning of the month and looks set to don the white kit and green cap when the Test series comes to life at Queens Sports Club on October 21.
Like many modern teams Zimbabwe have previously opted for a wicket-keeper batsman rather than a specialist wicket keeper. However, The Sunday Mail understands that the selectors are keen to go with a specialist keeper, a man with the agility needed to make the most of any chance.
Mayavo has played 31 first class matches in his five-year career and has a batting average of 18.02, a single century and three fifties.
The lad, who is training with the squad in Bulawayo, has 81 dismissals behind the stumps, 76 catches and five stumpings.Mayavo is competing against the more experienced Regis Chakabva, who has 13 dismissals (12 catches and one stumping) from 10 Tests, for the right to keep wicket.
Chakabva did duty in Zimbabwe’s last Test in Sri Lanka, earlier this year, where he opened batting and kept wicket as well.
Then the 30-year-old Chakabva was preferred ahead of another option PJ Moor, who has also been used as a keeper. Brendan Taylor, who is set to make his international comeback against the West Indies after a two-year absence, can also keep wicket but is highly unlikely to take the gloves.
The 31-year-old has only kept once in Test cricket, back in 2013.
If he does get the nod Mayavo will join an exclusive club of local wicketkeepers. Only six players – Andy Flower, current Bulawayo Metropolitan Tuskers coach Wayne James, Tatenda Taibu, Chakabva, Taylor and Richmond Mutumbami – have kept for Zimbabwe in Test cricket since 1992 when the country played its first Test.
Will Mayavo become the seventh Test keeper?
