A stadium beneath the Smoke That Thunders … Zimbabwe ’s grand cricket dream takes shape

 WITH the ICC Men’s Under-19 Cricket World Cup already humming along beautifully and the tournament machinery turning with reassuring ease, Zimbabwe Cricket’s gaze is beginning to drift towards a far grander horizon — the kind that demands more than tidy logistics and good intentions.

Beyond the present spectacle lies next year’s ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup, a colossal showpiece Zimbabwe will co-host alongside Namibia and South Africa, and one that is already stirring the country’s cricketing imagination with the promise of theatre, glamour and renewal.

At the heart of that preparation is a build that feels less like a construction project and more like a statement of belief: the Mosi-oa-Tunya International Cricket Stadium in Victoria Falls. In a nation that has long carried its cricket in the familiar arms of Harare and Bulawayo, the idea of a new home — a new shrine — rising near one of the world’s great natural wonders has the shimmer of destiny. This, Zimbabwe Cricket hopes, will become the new Mecca of Zimbabwean cricket: a place where the game does not merely happen, but is experienced, inhaled, remembered.

The foundation stone for the multi-purpose 10 000-seater stadium was laid in 2024, and the story since then has been one of steady momentum rather than stalled ambition. In a recent update with Rohit Juglan, Zimbabwe Cricket Media and Communications manager Darlington Majonga said the project has moved with a confidence that is beginning to surprise even the optimists.

He noted that significant progress has already been made, and that the stadium will be ready sooner than many expected, a rare and welcome line in a world where big builds often come with big delays.
Majonga said construction is well on course and will be finished comfortably ahead of the World Cup schedule — a detail that matters not only for tournament readiness, but for the calm it brings to planning, testing and polishing the finer details that separate a venue from a masterpiece. There is something almost poetic, too, in the fact that the ground will be a black soil wicket, rich with higher clay content, allowing the pitch to absorb more water while holding its shape and character over time. It is the kind of surface that does not simply offer a contest; it sets a mood. With its elasticity and the promise of uneven bounce, it invites patience and demands craft. Batters, on such a wicket, are advised to take time to settle in and adapt to the surface, particularly on used wickets — as if the pitch itself insists on a conversation before it grants you a run.

Source: A stadium beneath the Smoke That Thunders … Zimbabwe ’s grand cricket dream takes shape (23/01/2026)