Former England and Zimbabwe player Gary Ballance has joined Zimbabwe’s coaching staff as a consultant for their tour of England, starting with their one-off Test at Trent Bridge on May 22. Ballance is well experienced in English cricket and played most of his cricket with Yorkshire. He played 23 Tests for England between 2014 and 2017 and was the third fastest Englishman to 1000 Test runs, though his record has since been equalled by Harry Brook. Unfortunately, after some rough patches, the end came for Ballance in England colours in 2017.
Subsequently Ballance made the rarer of all moves of playing for his country of birth, Zimbabwe. Ballance had a fabulous debut for Zimbabwe, scoring an unbeaten 137 in 2023, becoming only the second player ever to score Test hundreds for two nations, after Kepler Wessels. Having represented Zimbabwe in 1 Test, 5 ODIs and 1 T20I, Ballance decided to call it quits on his professional cricketing career in 2023.
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Zimbabwe Cricket’s managing director Givemore Makoni was excited to acclaim Ballance’s integration into the coaching staff: “We’re really happy to have Gary Ballance with us for this important tour. His knowledge of English cricket will be a great help as we prepare.”
Zimbabwe’s team will fly on Friday to the United Kingdom. They will play at Leicester a warm-up game against a First-Class County XI ahead of the Test against England. From June 3-6, another four-day game will be on the cards as South Africa entertains Zimbabwe at Arundel for the purpose of preparation for the World Test Championship final against Australia.
