zimcricketnews.com

The Zimbabwe Independent carries ZC's announcement of four of the five franchise CEOs, who are as we named them last week: Kenyon Ziehl at Centrals, Hugo Ribatika at Northerns, Givemore Makoni at Southerns and Stanley Staddon at Westerns, who have lodged a formal application with ZC to be renamed the far more impressive-sounding Matabeleland Warriors. The paper names Heath Streak as front-runner for the franchise's coach position, which on top of his expected appointment to the U19 team and other work he's doing in Matabeleland means he's going to be a very busy man if it all comes together.

The paper notes that Ziehl and Makoni have resigned their existing posts at ZC, with Jackie du Preez named Head of Selectors in Ziehl's place. The remaining members of the selection panel will be nominated in due course, one by each franchise. The CEO for the Easterns franchise has yet to be named.

CricInfo have noted that there's scepticism about the franchise structure, in no small part due to the CEOs all being strongly linked with ZC:

"We have to see how this works out, but the worry is that this is little more than shuffling the deckchairs on the Titanic," one former administrator said. "The same old faces are all here, but while the board is controlled by the elite who have been running it for so long, why should we expect miracles."

That scepticism probably isn't entirely misplaced, but Matabeleland certainly seem to have hit the ground running - we just need to wait and see what the other sides can come up with.
Zimbabwe Independent - Zim Cricket Rings More Changes | CricInfo - Concerns as Zimbabwe's franchise heads are named