Taylor Axes Zim Contract

Taylor - quitting?

Brendan Taylor has not signed a contract with Zimbabwe Cricket for the 2008/9 season, fuelling speculation he has quit international cricket.

Promising batsman Taylor, who is thought to have left for England at the end of the 2007/8 season without concluding talks over a new deal, is missing from the list of 44 players who signed ZC contracts for the new season.

Prosper Utseya has been retained as captain but ZC have scrapped the controversial grading system used in the past as a "way of promoting a spirit of teamwork".

Trevor Mutangadura - ZC general manager cricket affairs - confirmed the scrapping of the grading system.

"By doing away with the old grading system ZC seeks to encourage teamwork rather than individualism, and the new system should bring about a unity of purpose that would otherwise not be possible in the old order.

"But players will still be evaluated taking into account their old status with ZC as of last season, and they will be under contract for the next two years," Mutangadura said.

Meanwhile, Mutangadura told a weekly newspaper that they are making efforts to bring in former national team seamer Douglas Hondo as assistant to newly-appointed coach Walter Chawaguta.

Chawaguta, a former national Under-19 coach, took over from Robin Brown early this month.

"Walter has been asked to choose his assistant and he has indicated that he would like to work with Douglas Hondo, and ZC are in the process of trying to engage the former player at his England base.

"The two of them were in Australia recently under a ZC development programme at Cricket Australia's Centre of Excellence in Adelaide," Mutangadura told The Standard newspaper.