The Sunday Mail
Tinashe Kusema
VITALIS CHIKOKO is available and likely to feature for the Zimbabwe senior team when the country hosts the Afro Can and AfroBasket Zone six qualifiers.
Three slots are available for the men and women’s competition, slated for June 3-8 at the City Sports Centre with Angola and Zimbabwe expected to tussle for the automatic qualification and wildcard slots in the women’s AfroBasket qualifiers.
In the men’s Afro Can competition- Zambia, Mozambique and hosts Zimbabwe will all be vying for the sole spot available, after apathy hit the regional competition with the likes of South Africa, Malawi, Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho and Swaziland all failing to make it to the regional games.Angola, by virtue of having qualified for the FIBA World Cup together with Senegal, Ivory Coast, Tunisia and Nigeria- all received automatic qualification to the competition.
However, it is the availability of France-based Centre Chikoko that has boosted Zimbabwe’s camp.The 28-year-old’s schedule opened up after his French outfit Élan Béarnais Pau-Orthez were dumped out of French Pro A League play-offs last week.The former French champions went down 2-1 to Nanterre at the quarter-final stage.
“We are extremely happy and excited at the prospects of having a player like Vitalis available.
“We expect him to arrive on Sunday (today), in time for camp, where he will join the rest of the team” said men’s coach Addison Chiware.
“A player of his calibre adds value to the team, and we expect him to play a leading role in our quest to qualify,” he said.
Chiware’s sentiments were echoed by Basketball Union of Zimbabwe president Joe Mujuru, who added that Chikoko’s presence could just be the missing link between success and failure.
“Look, the gap in quality between the region’s big four-in Angola, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe- is not that big.
“With Angola not taking part and South Africa withdrawing, our chances of qualifying are high now as we mostly have only Mozambique to contend with.
