Bill Flower realized 30 years ago that cricket wouldn’t survive, let alone bloom, in Zimbabwe unless it reached out to the country’s Black majority and found a place in their hearts. 

Part of his plan finally came together two weeks ago when the Takashinga Cricket Club, set in one of the country’s oldest Black townships, hosted an international game for the first time. 

The spiritual home of Black cricket in Zimbabwe, where players looked after the pitch and planted the grass themselves in its early days, finally became a fully fledged international venue when West Indies beat the United States in a Cricket World Cup qualifying game on June 18. 

It was a landmark match in which Takashinga lived up to its name, which means “We persevered” in the local Shona language. 

“It’s absolutely fantastic and I know that my father would be very proud to witness it, and I’m certainly proud,” said Bill Flower’s son, Andy, the former Zimbabwe captain and Ashes-winning coach with England whose resume includes once being a Takashinga player himself. 

Zimbabwe will qualify for the World Cup in India later this year if it beats Scotland on Tuesday in the qualifying tournament it is hosting. That makes Takashinga’s emergence as an international ground even more special, even if Zimbabwe, a regular participant at the World Cup, didn’t play there during the qualifiers. 

An opportunity to build

Bill Flower started in the early 1990s, digging deep into his own pockets to coach Black kids from Harare’s Highfield township where Takashinga is. Then, there were hardly any cricket facilities in Highfield and families couldn’t afford to send their children to Harare Sports Club to practice. Bill Flower used his reputation as a respected coach, and his own car, to take them to the prestigious club. 

In Highfield, he discovered talents like Tatenda Taibu, who was nine when he joined Flower’s coaching squad. Taibu went on to become a Zimbabwe test captain. 

Bill Flower also found there was potential in Highfield beyond players. A small group had just started Takashinga Cricket Club and it was an obvious opportunity to build something bigger. 

Andy Flower, then Zimbabwe’s best player, took his father’s lead in identifying Highfield as crucial for cricket in the southern African nation, which was under white minority rule until 1980 and struggled with racial tensions for years after. A big-name white player, he decided to join the relatively unknown Takashinga team. 

“I knew how committed they were in building their club,” Andy Flower said. “I thought it was helpful to have some of my experience, go there and work with them at training, during games, talk to them in the dressing room.” 

“I thought it was something that would help to accelerate their development. I thought the bonus would be the mixing of Black and white. That was a special time in my life.” 

Takashinga has produced more and more players, including five national team captains so far. Stephen Mangongo, one of the club’s founding members, became Zimbabwe coach. 

“Takashinga subconsciously spread self-belief among the generality of Blacks to take cricket seriously countrywide,” said Mangongo. 

 

 

But the transformation wouldn’t be complete until cricket was played at the highest level in Highfield. 

The fixture list didn’t quite work out. It wasn’t Zimbabwe, which has five players in the current team with Takashinga connections, that played on the ground’s international debut. But West Indies was a good second-choice, a team that has won two World Cups and advanced Black cricket internationally more than any other. 

“I’m so excited to finally watch them live. I hope to watch more big games here,” said Sakina, an 8-year-old Black girl from Highfield who was at Takashinga for that landmark West Indies-U.S. game and rooting for West Indies, which won by 39 runs but later failed to qualify for the World Cup. 

Sakina’s school is a couple of streets from Takashinga and she plays cricket at an academy set up by Elton Chigumbura, one of the former Zimbabwe captains who played for Takashinga. 

“My dad’s passion is football, but I love cricket more,” she added. “One day I want to play for Zimbabwe and play many games here at Takashinga.” 

Club appeals to young, old

While Sakina is a perfect example of Takashinga’s ability to influence young lives, the club struck chords across all generations. 

Now 50, Highfield resident Nathaniel Mavima knew nothing about cricket until the club started gaining recognition in the early 2000s. 

“I’ve been a big fan for 20 years,” Mavima said. “Over the years, this ground has become more of a community center.” 

Hamilton Masakadza, another Takashinga success story who played for Zimbabwe for 18 years, said it was “bittersweet” that he missed his old ground’s international debut because of his current work as Zimbabwe’s director of cricket. 

But he remembered the day it was officially opened in 2003 by West Indies great Brian Lara, whose team was on tour and using Takashinga as a practice venue. A plaque recognizing the moment one of the best players to pick up a cricket bat opened the ground still hangs in Takashinga’s club house. 

It took another two decades to host international cricket and Trevor Garwe was never going to miss the moment. A former Takashinga bowler who played one game for Zimbabwe in 2009, he was back at his old club working as a venue manager for the World Cup qualifying tournament. 

He said that first game was for the kids of Highfield who still can’t afford to watch the sport they love at other stadiums. 

“Takashinga has brought it home,” Garwe said. 
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A standoff between South Africa’s Women’s World Cup squad and the national soccer association over pay and other issues forced officials to field a makeshift team of little-known players that included a 13-year-old for a game against Botswana on Sunday.

The game was supposed to be the final warm-up match for the African women’s champion on home soil before it headed off to the Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, but it turned into an embarrassment on and off the field as the entire World Cup squad sat out the game.

South Africa’s team of replacement players hastily pulled together from local clubs lost 5-0 to Botswana at the Tsakane Stadium near Johannesburg. They were 4-0 down at halftime in a game that was delayed for an hour at the request of the South African Football Association, SAFA, so it could scramble and put together a team.

South Africa coach Desiree Ellis said one of the players she had to draft in was aged 13. In a post-match interview, she didn’t comment on the problems.

The World Cup players only arrived at the match at halftime, when they emerged to watch from the stands.

SAFA also didn’t immediately comment on what sparked the standoff, but Thulaganyo Gaoshubelwe, the president of the South African Football Players Union, which represents the interests of soccer players, said the incident was partly caused by poor pay for the players.

“They are fighting for their rights,” Gaoshubelwe said of the South African players in a video posted on his union’s official Twitter account. “SAFA doesn’t want to include money in their contracts. We must fight for the rights of these players.”

Gaoshubelwe, who was standing next to some of the players outside the team hotel in the video, said their complaints had been “dismissed” by SAFA. He was also seen in discussions with the players and accompanied them to the stadium when they turned up at halftime.

Gaoshubelwe claimed SAFA president Danny Jordaan was to blame for the standoff.

South Africa Sports Minister Zizi Kodwa said in a statement he would be meeting with the players’ union on Tuesday “to hear the serious concerns expressed by the team.”

The meeting would be about the players’ “welfare” and issues related to their contracts, Kodwa said.

The squad is due to fly to New Zealand in two groups on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The South African Broadcasting Corporation reported that players were also annoyed that their farewell game before the World Cup was held at the Tsakane Stadium, which holds just 5,000 people and is not a high-profile soccer venue.

The players viewed that as a mark of disrespect for them from their national soccer association, the SABC reported.

SABC and other television networks broadcast images of the World Cup squad members standing around outside their team bus at a hotel shortly before the game was due to kick off. SAFA CEO Lydia Monyepao was seen speaking with the players.

South Africa won the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations last year for its first major title, yet the players have often complained that they aren’t given the recognition or benefits that the men’s team gets.

South Africa is due to play Costa Rica in New Zealand on July 15 in its final World Cup warm-up game. South Africa plays Sweden, Argentina and Italy in the group stage at the World Cup, starting against the Swedes on July 23.
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South Africa’s electricity minister said on Sunday the country was closer to ending daily power cuts as warmer weather returns towards the end of the year, but declined to give a specific date.

 

South Africa is on course to see its most blackout days in history this year with daily power cuts extending to almost 10 hours a day, affecting businesses and households in an economy already hobbled by high interest rates and inflation.

 

The power cuts, called loadshedding locally, is expected to shave off 2 percentage points from GDP this year, the central bank said last month.

 

Blackouts have eased in the past few weeks but there is a fear that as the southern hemisphere winter takes deeper hold in July and August, higher heating demand could trip many power plants. By September, the temperature starts to climb once more.

 

“I know when we get into summer conditions, then at the current rate, generation will far exceed demand,” Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said in a news conference.

 

Due to interventions on system maintenance and availability and efforts from businesses and households, the worst case scenario of peak winter demand of 34,000 megawatts (MW) has not materialized, he said.

 

The capacity available is plateauing around 29,000 MW, giving enough room to bring the power cuts down to Stage 3, where 3,000 MW are taken off the grid, leading to between two and four hours of daily power cuts, the minister added.

 

South Africa implements power cuts in stages from one to eight with eight being the highest and translating into over 10 hours of daily power cuts.

 

Ramokgopa said the country was reaching a stage where power generation was beginning to keep up with demand, with blackouts coming down from Stage 6 to Stage 3 in the space of six weeks.

 

South Africa could soon have no blackouts for 24 hours, he said.

 

“I want to say to the South African people we are much, much closer to that date,” he said.
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NAIROBI, Kenya — Nowhere in the world has a higher rate of unsafe abortions or unintended pregnancies than sub-Saharan Africa, where women often face scorn for becoming pregnant before marriage.

Efforts to legalize and make abortions safer in Africa were shaken when the U.S. Supreme Court ended the national right to an abortion a year ago. Within days, Sierra Leone President Julius Maada Bio declared that his government would decriminalize abortion “at a time when sexual and reproductive health rights for women are being either overturned or threatened.”

But some U.S.-based organizations active in Africa were emboldened, especially in largely Christian countries. One is Family Watch International, a nonprofit Christian conservative organization whose anti-LGBTQ+ stance, anti-abortion activities and “intense focus on Africa” led to its designation as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

In April, Family Watch International helped to develop a “family values and sovereignty” meeting at Uganda’s presidential offices with lawmakers and other delegates from more than 20 African countries. The organization’s Africa director also is advocating for his country, Ethiopia, to revoke a 2005 law that expanded abortion access and dramatically reduced maternal mortality.

“It’s kind of like the gloves are off,” Sarah Shaw, head of advocacy at U.K.-based MSI Reproductive Choices, an international provider of reproductive health services, said in an interview.

In a September speech to the African Bar Association, the president of Family Watch International, Sharon Slater, alleged that donor countries were attempting a “sexual social recolonization of Africa” by smuggling in legal abortion along with sex education and LGBTQ+ rights.

“Sexual rights activists know if they can capture the hearts and minds of Africa’s children and indoctrinate and sexualize them, they will capture the future lawyers, teachers, judges, politicians, presidents, vice presidents and more, and thus they will capture the very heart of Africa,” Slater claimed.

Her speech in Malawi was attended by the country’s president, a former leader of the Pentecostal Assemblies of God movement.

After lobbying lawmakers in the southern African nation not to consider a bill that would have allowed abortion under certain circumstances, the U.S.-based Catholic group Human Life International told its supporters in March that “thanks to you, Malawi is safe from legal abortion.”

The African Union two decades ago recognized the right to abortion in cases of rape and incest or when the life of the mother or fetus is endangered or the mother’s mental or physical health is at risk.

A growing number of countries have relatively liberal abortion laws. Benin legalized abortion less than a year before the U.S. Supreme Court ruling, though Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, allows abortion only to save the mother’s life.

African experts say events in the U.S. could reverse gains in the availability of safe abortion procedures, especially since the U.S. government is the largest global donor of international reproductive health assistance.

Such changes could deeply affect the lives of women of reproductive age in sub-Saharan Africa, where 77% of abortions, or more than 6 million a year, are estimated to be unsafe, the Guttmacher Institute, an international research and policy organization with headquarters in New York, said in 2020.

Unsafe abortions cause 16% of maternal deaths in the World Health Organization’s largely sub-Saharan Africa region, the U.N. agency said last year, “with variations across countries depending on the level of restrictions to abortion.”

Abortion opponents are especially outspoken in East Africa, where countries publicly wrestle with the issue of teen pregnancy but offer little sex education and access to legal abortions in limited circumstances.

A sexual and reproductive health bill introduced in 2021 is still under debate by the East African Community, whose member nations include Burundi, Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. Some Catholic and other conservative organizations have criticized a section that would allow a woman to terminate a pregnancy in cases of rape, incest or endangered health.

Earlier this year, the Protestant Council of Rwanda directed all health facilities run by its member institutions to stop performing abortions, although Rwandan law permits them in certain cases.

“We are having a very strong anti-rights narrative,” Brenda Otieno, research coordinator with the Kisumu Medical and Education Trust in Kenya, said during a Tuesday webinar about the global effects of the U.S. Supreme Court decision.

Abortion providers are often harassed, Otieno said, and a year ago, Kenya passed a national reproductive health policy that paid little attention to safe abortion care.

In Uganda, one rights watchdog said the issue of abortion access is taboo, with advocates facing discrimination, even as some women resort to self-mutilation.

“We’ve seen a number of people losing their lives,” said Twaibu Wamala, executive director of the Uganda Harm Reduction Network. Abortion is illegal in Uganda, although it can be legally carried out by a licensed medical worker who determines that a pregnancy threatens the mother’s life. But many doctors, fearing medical complications, only offer post-abortion care that may be too expensive or too late to save a woman’s life.

In Ethiopia, civil society workers have asked the government to investigate what they fear is a new trend: fewer public health facilities providing abortions and more women seeking care after unsafe abortions.

Groups that oppose abortion in Africa’s second most populous nation are mostly incited by outsiders and “consider the Supreme Court decision as fuel for them,” Abebe Sibru, the Ethiopia director for MSI Reproductive Choices, said.
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