Mountaineers franchise cricket club will launch its first edition of the Twenty20 Winter league series in Mutare on Friday.

The Mountaineers, who won last season’s Stanbic Bank Twenty20 series after beating Mashonaland Eagles in the final, hope to use the mini-league to keep their players in shape ahead of next season.

The league will see clubs from Manicaland and Marondera participate, including Donald Tiripano, wicket-keeper Kudzai Sauramba, Tendai Chatara and Kevin Kasuza.

Mountaineers franchise area manager Farai Chari said: “We are going to launch our first edition of the T20 tournament in Mutare on Friday. The tournament will see clubs from Manicaland and Marondera participate at the first edition. In the last few years we only hosted the 50 over limited matches. So we found it fit to introduce the shortest version of the game.

“The major issue is to keep Mountaineers players fit ahead of our season which starts in September.

We need to keep our players in fine shape and we need to prepare for both formats of the game.

“One day game is about testing our players’ minds, their ability to build good innings and the T20 format is to test the players’ aggression,” he added