The Sunday Mail
Zimbabwe Cricket (ZC) managing director, Givemore Makoni has described the untimely death of Chevrons’ fielding coach, Shepherd Makunura, as a great loss to the game.
Makunura died on Thursday morning at the age of 46, with Makoni describing him as an unsung hero.
“On behalf of Zimbabwe Cricket, our deepest sympathies are with his family, colleagues and friends as they come to terms with losing such an affable and wonderful man,” said Makoni in a statement.
“We have lost one of our very best coaches, an unsung hero of our game and someone who has been instrumental in the unearthing and nurturing of many of Zimbabwe’s talented players.”
Born in Harare on October 23, 1976, Shepherd started playing cricket in the late 1980s at Chengu Primary School in Highfield.
He later earned a scholarship that took him to Prince Edward School for his secondary education.
A right-hand batter, Makunura was one of the brightest prospects to emerge from ZC’s development programme for high-density areas, as he made it into the Zimbabwe Under-14 and Under-15 sides.
In 1990, while in Form 1, he started his club career as one of the pioneering members of Takashinga.
Makunura made his first-class début for Mashonaland A in the 2001/2002 season.
He did not play first-class cricket again until the 2006/2007 season, when he appeared twice for Northerns.
When an Achilles tendon rupture cut short his playing career in 2007, he decided to turn his full attention to coaching.
In his early coaching days, Makunura had stints in charge of the Zimbabwe Under-14s (2005-2007) and Zimbabwe Under-19s (2008-2010).
He was Zimbabwe A coach for the tours by Canada and Kenya in 2018; the same year that he also took the Zimbabwe XI side to the Africa Cup tournament in South Africa.
On the domestic front, Makunura made history with Mountaineers by becoming the first coach in Zimbabwe to win three consecutive Logan Cup titles between 2017 and 2019, before he went on to claim the coveted silverware again the following season with Rocks.
In 2018, he joined the Zimbabwe senior men’s national team technical set-up as fielding coach, a position that he held until his untimely death. – ZC/Online Reporter
