Almost a decade ago, in my obsession to search on the ins and outs of Zimbabwe cricket, I felt the mainstream media wasn’t doing much in covering cricket in the country. Outside the international matches, there was little to no coverage of Zimbabwe cricket. No analysis on Logan cup matches, no discussions on the up-and-coming stars. Back then, social media hadn’t turned into the way of life it is today, and it was difficult for enthusiasts to find a space to discuss things they loved the most.
In my search for a discussion space, I came across the Zim cricket forum. Browsing through the dozens of threads filled with numerous topics and debates on Zim cricket (some went as far back as 2010), I realized this was the kind of community I had been missing all along. I signed up as Ash but never really logged on that much. I just went in to read the points of view of the regular posters.
To date I don’t know anyone from that forum in person, but in a way, anonymity was the beauty of it. Initially I thought most posters were in and around Zimbabwe. I was genuinely shocked to find out most of the users were not in Zimbabwe nor were they Zimbabweans at all. My favourite contingent were the users from Bangladesh: Kriterion_BD, safiulsohel85 and sam_ahm. I especially loved reading their posts because Zimbabwe and Bangladesh cricket discussions tend to produce a specific kind of tension. Both sets of fans know pain. Both sets of fans know false dawns. Both sets of fans know what it means to convince yourself that this time, surely, the collapse will not happen. Moreover, Bangladesh’s rise to cricket coincided with Zimbabwe’s downfall. Their greats such as Shakib Al Hasssan, Tamim Iqbal & Mushfiqur Rahim all made their international debuts against Zimbabwe. And with Zimbabwe in its renaissance stage, the rivalry now is much more competitive than ever.
Only one member I was sure was based in Zimbabwe: Googly. Googly was one of the smart ones. His knowledge of cricket was sound, and he seemed to have relationships with some of the players.
As much I enjoyed the forum, I found some posters cringe. Patbee, for example, had this weird agenda against Sikandar Raza. TrainDriver, who I presumed was English, regularly logged in just to remind us Zimbabwe sucked at cricket, as if we had somehow missed it. Mueddie 28 on the other hand never seemed to make any sense at all.
They were a couple of Indians too: Dr Situ and Crimson Avenger. They had more love for Zimbabwe than India. Then there were other members whose names I have forgotten, but that was the forum. It went beyond threads and posts. It was people, a community sharing its love for Zimbabwe cricket.
The matchday threads especially made for hilarious reading. The ebbs and flows of a cricket match were met with some ridiculous overreacting posts. One minute, I’d read, “We’re losing this badly!”, the next, “We’re back!”, and, “We might win this when Zimbabwe picks up a few wickets or establishes a decent batting partnership.”
With the emergence of more discussion groups such as Twitter spaces and WhatsApp groups, my appearances on the zim cricket forum started to wane. I still visited the site, particularly after squad selection or following a matchday thread but less frequently as time went on. In June, towards Zimbabwe’s cricket all format series, I typed the URL to the forum in my browser, however the light blue interface didn’t pop up. Instead, an almost blank page with a short but boldened definitive message popped up:
NOT FOUND!
Another message in smaller font: The requested URL was not found on this server.
I wrote it off as a temporary glitch. After all, servers misbehave and websites crash; it’s the nature of technology. I focused on other things, confident the issue would resolve itself soon. A few hours later, I checked back. Still dead air. Then came the next day. Nothing. A week passed, the forum was still down. Slowly I was beginning to accept the forum was done! All those colorful characters had disappeared into the void. Gone. In an instant.
On 28 June 2026, a test match between Zimbabwe and Bangladesh kicked off at Harare Sports Club. I’d always logged in before play to read the posters’ preferred starting playing team, a small ritual that meant nothing until it was taken away.
Watching Muzarabani, Ngarava, Evans and Nyamhuri tear through the Bangladeshi batsmen on a juicy deck was deeply satisfying. It was the exact type of session to set the forum on fire. Whether it’s Crimson Avenger claiming we possessed the greatest pace attack in world cricket, or Mueddie 28 and Traindriver warning that a batting collapse was waiting in the shadow, there should have been wild overreactions, violent selection debates. But on that day, the doorway was shut. The cricket was fantastic, but I couldn’t log in and read about it with the forum boys.
