From heartbreak to harmony, a group of loud fans carried Zimbabwe’s hopes, and their own savings, to a World Cup revival
Source: Zimbabwe’s Castle Corner: Six fans, endless songs, and a stand that became a movement
When Sri Lanka’s Dushan Hemantha sent down a leg-side wide off the final delivery of the 19th over, Zimbabwe, chasing 179, needed another ten off seven deliveries. The extra run prompted a motley group of Zimbabwe fans, sitting in the front row of the Lower B tier at Khettarama, to jump out of their seats and start hopping arm-in-arm, brimming with excitement.
This group of six, representing the Castle Corner, supporters of the Zimbabwe team, would leap again a minute later as Tony Munyonga clobbered a six off the first ball of the match’s final over. With two to win and one to level scores, Castle Corner would rhythmically chant: “one more, one more, one more.”
That shot released the tension that had been building in the Zimbabwe camp following a two-wicket 19th over, bowled by Dunith Wellalage. And when Brian Bennett hit the winning four, the silence of the home crowd was broken by squeals of excitement from the Zimbabwe players and the victory song being sung by the Castle Corner crew.
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Malvin Kwaramba joined Castle Corner in 2013, two years after the official group for Zimbabwe cricket supporters was launched. Castle Corner is the name of a stand at the Harare Sports Club, the iconic ground in the Zimbabwe capital. According to Kwaramba, devoted fans of the national team who earlier sat in different parts of the ground, decided to “congregate” in one place – Castle Corner – once they became familiar with each other. We have all seen this spot on TV where fans sing and dance, wearing colourful attire, acting as Zimbabwe’s 12th player.
The group comprises over 200 registered fans, with membership being free. Only six, though, have travelled to this T20 World Cup considering the high costs involved. The travelling fans, Kwaramba says, have each spent roughly US $2000 to make the trip. That’s approximately 51,350 Zimbabwe dollars. For perspective on how expensive the trip is, the per-capita income in Zimbabwe is under USD $2,500 according to World Bank data.
Why, then, did these fans risk their savings to follow Zimbabwe, who were placed in a group along with Australia and Sri Lanka – two teams that were favourites to make the Super Eight?
Kwaramba, who is a self-published author and is studying to be a lawyer, says it took a lot of effort and planning to make Castle Corner’s first overseas trip happen.
“When we travelled, we told ourselves we cannot afford to go to Sri Lanka, but we have to do it for the boys because our boys have got no fans traveling with them,” Kwaramba says. “Remember, we are a poor country. When we got here, we told ourselves and when we discussed with the boys (Zimbabwe team), they told us that they were not here to make up the numbers. We had belief. And by beating Australia, we laid the marker.”
The only woman in the travelling group, Leonah Tanikwa, calls herself a “Harare girl”, having moved from her native Bulawayo. The party vibe is what attracted Tanikwa to join Castle Corner, but it has now become “family” and a “home away from home”. Coming from a sports-loving family, Tanikwa wanted to experience the excitement of the World Cup first hand and not watch it from afar. So she took leave from her job in the hospitality industry and did not bother about the “risk”.
“I just told myself it’s a sacrifice that I had to make of seeing the World Cup, seeing the boys qualify into the Super Eight,” she says. “It’s just something that I really had to do. I needed to be there to witness it, not to be told by other people I needed to see it.”
Like Tanikwa, Godwin Mamhiyo, an accountant by profession, moved to Harare from Bulawayo. He played for the Tuskers B as a seamer, and counts Graeme Cremer and Brendan Taylor in the current World Cup squad as friends. As a youngster, he had watched the 2003 World Cup, which Zimbabwe co-hosted with South Africa and Kenya, but Mamhiyo wanted to see a World Cup outside his country. This time, despite the steep costs and having to leave behind three young kids, he decided he had to travel.
“If you love something, you’ve got to fund it. I tell you, this is the most brilliant money I’ve spent, being out here at the World Cup. This is worth every penny,” Mamhiyo says with a laugh.
Each member of Castle Corner says the risk and stress they took to follow Zimbabwe at the 2026 T20 World Cup became worth it once Zimbabwe defeated Australia last week. “I don’t think I’ll ever find the words big enough to describe the joy, the happiness. I even shed tears,” Tanikwa says.
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Among the multitude of happy moments that followed the victory against Australia, one was Raza and his squad dancing to the song Vanofambane Mweya Mutsvene, which translates to “we are moving with the Holy Spirit”.
The song is extremely popular with Castle Corner and Kwaramba, who leads the chorus from the stands, explains its significance.
“It means we are spiritual whenever, [and] wherever we go, we [are] moving with the Holy Spirit. As a team, we are deeply spiritual, and we move in the spiritual realm,” Kwaramba says. The group would add each player’s name to preface the lead line as if he was moving the Holy Spirit. “What we were saying [while singing with the Zimbabwe squad after the Australia win] was: all the players move around, we are guided by the Holy Spirit, the fans move around, we are guided by the Holy Spirit.”
The many songs of Castle Corner have that feet-tapping rhythm and a simplicity that will make you hum regardless of whether you know Shona and Ndebele, the two major dialects in Zimbabwe in which the songs are written and sung.
The words are sung to a rhythmic beat, with Castle members stomping feet, waving arms, and dancing in synchronised fashion, with Kwaramba orchestrating the flow and movement from the front in an informal role of conductor. “The basis of the song is praising the players.”
For the Sri Lanka leg of the World Cup, Kwaramba says the group has a specific song called the “huker song” to celebrate a four, six or a wicket. The chant goes like this: “Huker, huker/Huker, huker/ hey, hey/choo, choo, choo.”
Kwaramba, who is responsible for conceptualising the songs, says “huker” doesn’t have any meaning, and that he created it on a whim recently. However, the player songs have meaning.
“The songs we sing are deep-rooted in our culture. So what we just do with the songs is we improvise them to suit the players. So we’ve got a Raza song saying, ‘Raza has got cremoraall over the body’. Cremora is milk in our language. So it means Raza has got milk, which we use to drink tea. Then we’ve got Muzarabani saying he’s a great bowler. Then we’ve got a Ryan Burl song, where we are singing about Marondera, the place he comes form. We have a Bennett song saying, ‘We’ve come to see Bennett hit sixes and fours’. We have a song for Wellington Masakadza that says, ‘He’s a great player and we support him’.”
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Kwaramba says Zimbabwe’s progress to the Super Eight is a “huge achievement”, having gone through “tumultuous times”, including missing on qualifications for the ODI World Cup in 2019 and 2023 as well as the T20 World Cups in 2021 and 2024. This, in addition to the various players getting caught in corruption scandals.
The defeat to UAE at home in 2018, during the 2019 World Cup Qualifiers, is counted as among the lowest point in Zimbabwe’s cricket history – both for the players and the fans. Kwaramba was inconsolable. As the cameras zoomed on the Castle Corner, Brian Hwenjer, another founding member of Castle Corner, hid Kwaramba’s face with his cap. Hwenjer recounts the events of the day which still stirs emotions in both him and Kwaramba, who, due to the stress he endured on that day, was diagnosed with having high blood pressure.
“It still pains us as fans,” Hwenjer says. “We still talk about that moment because it was a terrible moment for our cricket – for the players as well, for the fans, even for the little boys who were trying to come up through the ranks.”
Back then, the Castle Corner fans were aiming to travel to England for the 2019 World Cup, and never figured how UAE, an Associate country, could defeat Zimbabwe, who have strong cricketing roots.
“We thought we’ve already made it. We thought we had already qualified for England. We thought we all, as fans, we are going to England. This was our opportunity for the fans to go maybe watch the game at Lord’s, Trent Bridge and other grounds. And then we lost [to] UAE. So just imagine, I actually resigned from the supporters’ executive because it was too painful for me. I actually resigned, and then until the other guy said, ‘no, no, no, this is our team. Let’s continue supporting our boys and one day we’ll reach the goal, the ultimate goal’. And here we are.”
Despite all the controversies in Zimbabwe Cricket, the main reason fans don’t want to stop supporting the national team, Mamhiyo says, is because the relationship is too close.
“We live together, we go through it all together. When they struggle, we struggle with them. And when they play well, we are also happy. So our relationship is basically that of fish and water. It continues that way for as long as possible.”
Thursday was the last day of this World Cup for the Castle Corner group as they head back to Zimbabwe on Friday. Kwaramba points the orginal budget has already been “stretched”, and the group cannot afford to travel for the Super Eight, but will continue to support from their homeland.
On Thursday, as hundreds of home fans started to depart the venue, the Castle Corner bunch sang one last time: “We have done our part. Time to go home.”
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