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Harare – The City Of Sunshine
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By B.V.Swagath,
published on Aug 27, 2005
(as part of the Videocon TriSeries 2005/06
Coverage)
 Harare is the capital city of Zimbabwe and is
one of the two Test Centres in Zimbabwe apart
from Bulawayo. For the record, Zimbabwe has had
three Test grounds namely the Harare Sports Club
in Harare, the Queen’s Sports Club and the
Bulawayo Athletic Club both in Bulawayo.
Bulawayo Athletic Club however has been stopped
from being a Test Centre after hosting just one
test in 1992 against New Zealand.
The Harare Sports Club has been hosting Tests
and One Day Internationals since October 18,
1992 the day on which Zimbabwe made their Test
Debut. Zimbabwe was up against a strong Indian
side which had the likes of Md.Azharuddin,
Sachin Tendulkar and Kapil Dev. It was obviously
the Test Debut for the Zimbabwean players as
well but for one John Traicos. And Traicos
wasn’t playing his first Test unlike his
teammates – reason being that way back in 1970,
John Traicos a 23 year old off spinner made his
Test Debut for South Africa at Kingsmead, Durban
against England! After South Africa lost their
place in International Cricket, John Traicos
could return back to Test Cricket only in 1992
and this time it was for Zimbabwe in Zimbabwe’s
1st ever Test at the tender age of 45!
Coming back to Zim’s 1st ever Test, they shocked
the cricketing world after compiling a huge 456
after winning the toss and electing to bat
first. Skipper and dashing middle order right
hander Dave Houghton scored a century on debut
and Grant Flower made 82. If that wasn’t enough
for a great performance from Zims, they went on
to bowl out India for just 307. Zimbabwe could
restrict India because of the 45 year old young
off spinner John Traicos who took 5 wickets for
Zimbabwe and he had bowled as many as 50 overs.
India had batted many overs to ensure that
Zimbabwe didn’t have the time to force a win and
upset the Indians. Manjrekar played one of those
drowsy innings scoring 104 in 422 balls and
batted for almost 9 hours. India at one stage
was at 101/5.
 Let's
now move on to the city of Harare and it was
earlier known as Salisbury and the name Harare
came during the 2nd anniversary of Zimbabwe’s
independence on April 18, 1982. Salisbury was
the name given by the then ruling United Kingdom
and this name stayed for more than 90 years.
Harare is one of the most developed and bustling
cities in Southern Africa and is Zimbabwe’s
major cultural, commercial, communications and
educational centre and is also called as the
“City of Sunshine” for continuously long periods
of sunshine. It is a beautiful city with
jacaranda trees (stunning late spring purple coloured flowering trees) all around the
streets. As a tourist destination, Harare offers
the National Gallery of Zimbabwe – a museum with
collections relating to the art, culture,
colonial and post-colonial painting and
sculpture of Zimbabwe. Apart from this, the
National Botanical Gardens, the granite hill
Kopje, the amazing Balancing rocks (natural rock
formations balancing on one another) and last
but not the least the Lion and Cheetah Park –
the place where you would find the king of the
beasts in their natural surroundings.
Time to talk Cricket again and the Harare Sports Club (HSC)
is located in the heart of the city and is the
official location of the Zimbabwe Cricket
Board. The stadium has a capacity of around
10,000. Harare Sports Club has hosted the first
ever test for Zimbabwe as mentioned earlier, it
has been the venue where Zimbabwe won its first
ever test in 1994 when Pakistan found the
conditions difficult and crashed to an innings
and 64 runs defeat. HSC is known for its seaming
conditions whereas the other International
Centre – the Queen’s Sport Club in Bulawayo is
known for its bounce and pace. Very near to the
stadium is the Presidential Palace of Robert
Mugabe, the present President of Zimbabwe. The
Harare Sports Club which is also the home of the
first class team Mashonland organizes Zimbabwe’s
first class tournament called the Logan Cup.
That is all we have about Harare and Cricket in
Harare, Cricketfundas.com would soon come up
with the other Cricketing city in Zimbabwe and
no guesses its Bulawayo, the 2nd largest city in
Zimbabwe.
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