LONDON, United Kingdom – A promising Zimbabwe-born cricketer has won the coveted Wisden Schools Cricketer of the Year in England – earning praise from cricket legends who tipped him for a stellar career.

Muyeye, who played his final year for Eastbourne College Cricket in 2019, scored 1,112 runs at an average of 69.5, including two double centuries.

The former Peterhouse student now plays for the junior team in England county cricket side, Sussex.

Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack, a magazine also known as the bible of cricket, is published annually in the United Kingdom since 1864.

In 2008, Wisden introduced a new award, the Wisden Schools Cricketer of the Year. The aim was to help raise the profile of schools cricket, especially at state schools.

Well over half of the previous winners of the schools category have gone on to play first-class cricket and a handful represent their country on the international circuit.

Leading the congratulations were England wicketkeeper Jos Buttler, TV broadcaster Piers Morgan and Sri Lanka cricket legend Kumar Sangakkara.

Writing on Twitter, Morgan described Muyeye as his “young friend” and a “brilliant young cricketer who is destined for great things.”

Sangakkara said Muyeye had “great balance and posture” and has “incredibly fast hands”.

“A player to look out for a few years from now for sure,” he opined.

The 2020 edition of Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack says of the Sixth Former: “He is a player of immense presence, a batsman destined to empty bars.

“People in the know at Eastbourne [College] have learned to ask when he will next be playing, so they can feast on his style, which shows the aggressive influence of Viv Richards and Kevin Pietersen, two of his idols.

“Like them, he intimidates the attack, turning respectable bowlers into fodder for his swinging bat.

“Muyeye, a popular, hard-working, self-effacing student who hails from just outside Harare, is on a sports scholarship; he has family in the UK, and hopes to qualify for England rather than his native Zimbabwe.

“Rob Ferley, his coach at Eastbourne [College], says he is also the best off-spinner of his age group in the county, as well as an electric fielder with exceptional hand-eye co-ordination. But it is the reliability of his fast, wristy run-scoring that has given Sussex cause to be interested in his development, and makes him such an exciting prospect.”

He ended the 2019 season on a high, breaking two long-standing school records and collecting his school’s coveted Simon Green Cup for Endeavour award, prompting the Second Master to say of him: “Tawanda Muyeye is the epitome of hard work, effort, humility and kindness.

“The qualities of endeavour have helped him in breaking two longstanding school records; the first pupil ever in 150 years of cricket to score two double hundreds… and the all-time run scoring record in one season.”