Zimbabwe cricket trailblazer Sinikiwe Mpofu has died aged 37.
Mpofu was an all-rounder and was a part of Zimbabwe girls’s first-ever worldwide match in December 2006.
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She booked herself extra historical past when she becane the primary feminine participant to transition from enjoying to teaching and in 2021 was the top coach of the Mountaineers and Southerns girls’s groups in addition to a nationwide womne’s staff assistant coach.
Her loss of life comes lower than a month after the loss of life of her husband Shepherd Makunura.
He was the Zimbabwe males’s nationwide staff’s fielding coach who handed away on December 15.
Zimbabwe Cricket web site has reported that Mpofu was pronounced lifeless on arrival at a medical facility on Saturday after she had collapsed at her dwelling in Masvingo.
She had taken compassionate depart after he husband’s loss of life having been set to accompany the Zimbabwe aspect to the 2023 Under-19s girls’s World Cup.
A autopsy will now be carried out to find out the reason for her loss of life.
The couple, who met via cricket, are survived by two youngsters.
She later turned the top coach of the Mountaineers girls’s staff within the nation’s home cricket league.
She guided them to the inaugural Fifty50 Challenge – Zimbabwe’s provincial one-day championship for girls – again in 2021.
Mpofu then led them to a different closing final season however her staff completed as runners-up within the Women’s T20 Cup.
Zimbabwe Cricket’s Givemore Makoni managing director, has paid tribute to the late star.
He mentioned: “Death has robbed us of a genuinely warm individual, more importantly a loving mother, and deprived so many others, including all of us, of one of the pioneers of women’s cricket in Zimbabwe who went on to excel as a coach at provincial and national levels.
“With her sudden passing coming just a few weeks after the death of her loving husband, who was also a part of our national team coaching setup, this is particularly a difficult and painful time for their young children, families, friends and the entire cricket fraternity.
“In extending to them our heartfelt condolences, we wish them the courage and strength to bear this devastating loss.”
This story first appeared in The Sun and was republished with permission.
