Zambia cricket: World Cup outing to ICC suspension

Yunus Badat remembers the 1975 Cricket World Cup as a potential pedestal that could have helped erect international cricket stars in Zambia, a country lying on the edges of east, central and southern Africa.

Far from becoming a tipping point, it has remained the only memory of a cricketing high for Zambia – in fact, the results were humiliating but competing in a world event against top Test players was something to be proud of.

“We were only Sunday cricketers. The other international teams comprised professional cricketers who played the game day in, day out for a living,” recalls Badat, 81, from London where he shifted around 10 years ago.

It showed. In two innings, East Africa – comprising players from Uganda (2), Tanzania (2), Zambia (3) and Kenya (rest of the squad) — could muster just 94 against England and 120 against India.

Badat himself was bowled in both the innings. He played on to his stumps a very quick delivery from John Snow at No. 3 for a duck and then was bowled by an arm ball from Bishan Singh Bedi at No. 4 for one.

“We were not prepared to face such pace and variations,” said Badat.The Zambian team that won the 1979 East Africa cricket championship for the Sir Robert Menzies Trophy. This had followed their triumphs in 1969 and 1974. Courtesy: Yunus Badat

Prior to the World Cup, they had faced a Rajasthan XI under MAK Pataudi which had some India stars like Eknath Solkar, Ramnath Parkar, Dilip Sardesai, Gundappa Viswanath but not Bedi. The late Nawab of Pataudi jr visited with wife Sharmila Tagore.

“We were a bit lucky that both South Africa (sanctioned due to apartheid) and Zimbabwe (internal wars) couldn’t compete in the 1975 World Cup. Since we – a potpourri of four nations – were the next best cricket team and were invited,” recalls Badat, a free-hitting batsman, who has his roots in a village near Ankleshwar in Gujarat, India.

Yunus Badat, now 81, moved to London a decade ago. In the 1970s, Zambia also hosted a Pakistan team that had the likes of Zaheer Abbas, Majid Khan among others. Mike Brearley too played for an MCC side. County teams Warwickshire and Glamorgan too dropped by.

After that though things continued at a laggard pace.

“We had decent cricket up until 1980 or thereabout but then school cricket started to fall apart. That is where your future cricketers come from. We had a really good bunch of cricketers between 1963 and 1970-72.

Zambia (or Northern Rhodesia then) had gained independence in 1964. While independence gave them the much-needed and rightful self-governance, the cricket as was developed by the British gradually suffered.

“There were some really good pace bowlers around in that 10-year period. After they left, we did have pacers but there was mediocrity. Till the 1960s, we had lot of South Africans who used to come and work and contribute to cricket. Their pace bowlers helped batsmen prepare for quality bowling,” added Badat, who went to a boarding school in Wellingborough, near Northampton in England in the mid-1950s.

“The onus was on schools to provide future talent but schools cricket in Zambia slowly went down.”

On the other hand, Kenya, thanks to sponsors and a wider pool of cricketers, broke away from East Africa team in 1980 and started taking big strides even making it to the ICC World Cup semi-final in 2003, the year Zambia managed to stand on its own and get recognised by the International Cricket Council as separate from East and Central Africa (E&CA) team – of which it was part along with Tanzania, Uganda and Malawi from 1989 to 2003, the year E&CA dissolved.

Saidi Malama, a senior coach who has worked with the national team and is a former Zambian player, says the biggest blow was the suspension handed by International Cricket Council (ICC) in July, 2019 due to infighting and squabbling among factions.

The result has been the stoppage of funding from ICC.

These days, Zambian youngsters are training at academies and competing in community cricket that includes night cricket. Pic courtesy: Saidi Malama

“Schools cricket is non-existent nowadays. What we have is community cricket, not schools cricket,” said Malama.

“Schools cricket falls under the ICC development funding. In community cricket, individual people can help but there is no ICC funding. Therefore schools cricket can become part of the calendar unlike community cricket which is not part of calendar,” added Malama.

“Schools give a wider network. It gives 100% of that. There is continuity.”

The ICC, in a statement in July 2019, stated: “The Croatia Cricket Federation and the Zambia Cricket Union (ZCU) have both been suspended for continuing non-compliance with ICC Membership criteria.”

Malama said, “It is unfair. The people who are involved up there (in managing ZCU) don’t play cricket and people who play cricket suffer. It is very unfair. If they were playing or just coming to watch cricket, they would have understood why it is wrong. But they are holding together. ICC says, ‘sit together and resolve, drop court cases and come back to us’.”

The provincial associations contribute to the ZCU in the absence of ICC funding. The ICC had suspended ZCU in 2019. Pic courtesy: Saidi Malama.However, not much has happened.

Malama said that Zambia had everything to become a strong cricketing nation. They also had former South Africa batsman Peter Kirtsen as their coach at one point in time.

“Zambia dominated among the remaining countries of E&CA because it had better infrastructure. We have 11 grounds with turf wickets, hosted many ICC tournaments,” he explained.

“There is no stadium but six of these grounds are very good. Besides, people have knowledge of cricket. Sixty per cent of those who play cricket are Asians while 40% are native Africans,” explains Malama.

All these good grounds are either in the copper belt or capital Lusaka. In the absence of proper domestic cricket, night cricket is the biggest draw with players from other countries also turning up for it.

When ICC were funding, the coaches and staff were getting money. However, over the past three years since suspension there has been no correspondence with ICC, no money, no cricket and no ICC tournament.

“We are playing cricket like in our backyard. Thankfully, domestic cricket is still active,” adds Malama, 52, a native African who has grown up among Asians and can speak Gujarati.

Lusaka alone has 22 teams and also has the Metropolitan Sports Club Cricket Ground, which is known as Lord’s of Zambia.

Since ICC money has dried up, individual provincial associations especially the Midlands Cricket Association (where Lusaka is situated) and Copper Belt Cricket Association contribute to ZCU. Midlands is the biggest contributor.

“We buy cricket equipment, pay umpires, scorers on our own.”

He says there are 18 teams of under-16 and under-10 in Zambia.

Cassim Suliman, the acting chief executive officer of Africa Cricket Association, said that Zambia was suspended after ICC inspection.

“The ICC RDM (Regional Development Manager) found some factionalism as well as issues with financial management. Hence the suspension,” said Suliman.

The ICC RDM who visited Zambia for inspection, Patricia Kambarami, did not respond to my (the writer) query. She has, unfortunately, now passed away.

Note: Zambia played their first cricket tournament in six years at Kenya Quadrangular 2024 (July 2024), but none of their matches had T20I status as they were serving ICC ban

**If you like my work, consider buying me a coffee at: www.ko-fi.com/flyslipcricket

Zambia Cricket, Africa