Gary Ballance to join Zimbabwe coaching staff ahead of One-off Test against England

The Zimbabwe team is set to play a one-off Test against England on May 22 at Trent Bridge. The encounter will be a four-day Test and feature great talents within each squad who will want to prove themselves in this game.

This series will also feature some returns back into the cricketing world, which also include the likes of Gary Ballance, who will be part of the Zimbabwe coaching staff ahead of the One-off Test between the two sides. Zimbabwe Cricket’s managing director, Givemore Makoni, also seemed excited to have the 35-year-old former batter in the team, who has a lot of experience playing in English conditions as well, since he has played international cricket for both England and Zimbabwe and has an incredible record in county cricket playing for the Yorkshire team.

“We are thrilled to welcome Gary Ballance to our coaching set-up for this historic tour. His deep understanding of English conditions, gained over years of playing at the highest level, will be a valuable asset to our team's tactical preparation,” Makoni said as quoted by ESPNcricinfo.

Also Read: Zimbabwe announce squad for one-off Test against England, Sikandar Raza returns

Ballance’s international career and domestic record

Ballance had made his debut in 2013 and retired from all forms of cricket in 2023.  In the ten years he has played 24 Tests, 21 ODIs, and one T20I throughout his career. He has scored 1653 runs at an average of 40.31 in red-ball cricket and has scored five centuries and seven half-centuries. Balance is the joint third fastest England player to 1000 Test Runs and is only the second player to score centuries for two Test-playing nations.

He has an incredible first-class record as he has represented both Yorkshire and Derbyshire. In the 171 first-class games he has played, he has scored 12031 runs at an average of 47.74 with 42 hundreds to his name.