THE Zambia Cricket Union (ZCU) is tomorrow expected to launch the game of cricket in North-Western Province in line with the International Cricket Council (ICC) directive to have the sport played in the countryside.

ZCU president Reuben Chama said in an interview yesterday that the ICC had issued a directive that the union should take sports to other areas apart from Lusaka and the Copperbelt where the sport was actively played.

Chama said the launch of the sport in North-Western Province would be a clash programme as the ICC wanted the launch to be completed by the end of the month with Northern Province initially targeted.

He said the union, however, decided to start with North-Western Province as the area has potential sponsors who can sustain the project once it starts with other Provinces to be targeted next year.

Chama was cautious with the spreading of the sport to other Provinces saying while the move to take cricket to all parts of the country was welcome, there was need to seriously put proper management plans in place to sustain the programme.

"What would be the benefitting of launching the programmes across the country if you can have qualified human resource to run the projects. This is why we have started with North-Western Province because the area has potential sponsors in the mining firms.

We do not want to start a programme before we can find suitable personnel to run the programmes and also we need to be sure that we can sponsors to help in the running of cricket in that particular Province," he said.