THE revival and development of the grassroots level project must be a priority for the newly installed coach Steve Kikolo, who looks a perfect man for the job.
It is good to see him given the job by the newly elected leadership of Tanzania Cricket Association (TCA) and his arrival justifies the commitment of the leadership in their efforts to make cricket in Tanzania advance to the desired level.
We don’t have any doubt in Tikolo’s ability to develop the game and players since what he has done in Uganda has helped our neighbours’ cricket level to reach a global level.
To make him work effectively and make him reach the set targets, Tikolo needs support cooperation and motivation, things that the TCA leadership under Premji Pindoria and Shaheed Dhanani must do, or else the whole mission can be a pipe-dream.
While bringing in Tikolo, the new leadership at the same time must work on the challenges that cricket face as not all of them were caused by technical team.
Cricket, in the recent years seems to have become either stagnant or going anti-clockwise according to the rankings of the International Cricket council (ICC).
Tanzania Cricket level has almost nose-dived from World Division Two ten years ago to Division Five today something that makes it lose the appeal it enjoyed during its revival era in early 2000s.
TCA must involve Tikolo fully when taking up cricket development at grassroots level since it plays a pivotal role in making the game reclaim its lost glory.
We would like to advise the cricket governing body and its associates to prepare a cricket curriculum which can be used by sports teachers, who will run grassroots level projects.
From this it should be noted that we need to transform Tanzanians that it should not be a “sports loving nation, but a sports playing nation”.
To achieve this we stress sports to be introduced as a school subject.
We believe that the past TCA management did not do one or two things right, something the new coach and the new management can work together to enable the sport develop to the higher levels.
