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Brian Bennett didn’t roar, didn’t leap; he just smiled as he hugged his team-mate after his second fifty helped Zimbabwe beat Sri Lanka in Colombo. Almost as if winning has become a routine. No opposition bowler – even Australian or Sri Lankan – has managed to still dismiss him at this T20 World Cup so far.
The quiet celebration didn’t come from technique. It came from a backyard cricket net in Goromonzi, 32 km south east of Harare, from a twin brother who was always there, from hours that nobody counted.
“I think I first picked up a bat when I was three or four years old,” Bennett once told the Daily Sun. “I’ve got a twin brother and a younger brother too. My dad built nets at home, so every time we got back from school, we could practice. Having a twin brother helped a lot because I was never alone – always had someone to play with.”
David and Brian. One batted, one bowled. Back and forth. Every afternoon after school, every weekend, at the net, their father, Kelly, had built for them. Kelly had played club cricket himself – a handful of first-class games for Young Mashonaland alongside the Flower brothers, Dave Houghton, and Heath Streak.
Zimbabwe’s captain Sikandar Raza, right, and Brian Bennett run between the wickets during the T20 World Cup cricket match between Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)
A blueberry farmer by trade, cricket stories by inheritance. “He didn’t play nationally but represented Zimbabwe Under-19 and played club cricket,” Bennett says. “So cricket was always part of the family.”
Then COVID hit. Bennett’s final two years at college evaporated. No sports fixtures. Nothing. “Sadly, Brian’s final years of high school at Peterhouse College were affected by Covid,” Ian Tinker, the veteran development coach, told SportsCast. The competitive years, gone.
South African shift
So the family improvised. In 2022, Bennett went to Kingswood College in South Africa for a bridging year. David went with him. Andrew Birch, the former Warriors seamer coaching there, remembers Bennett’s first game. Against Pearson.
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“He just took them apart. He smashed 151 off 100 balls.” What Birch noticed wasn’t just the aggression. “He was not scared and very good on the short ball.” And something else. “His work ethic is unbelievable, and his drive to succeed was the most impressive thing for me,” Birch told ESPNcricinfo. “You get kids that arrive, and they’ve got the talent, and they don’t really have that drive. He straight away had that.”
Bennett also thought about cricket. “A lot of kids don’t watch cricket much, or if they do, they watch the T20s,” Birch says. “But him and his whole family really watch cricket. It’s ingrained in them.”
The twins went to the 2022 Under-19 World Cup together. Played for Zimbabwe in the Caribbean together. Then came the split that nobody talks about much. Brian kept rising – T20Is in December 2023, all three formats within a year, centuries in each. David didn’t. At Trent Bridge in May 2025, he cut Gus Atkinson wide at 99 and roared before the sound arrived. Zimbabwe’s fastest Test hundred. Against England. In his seventh Test.
Zimbabwe’s Brian Bennett plays a shot during the T20 World Cup cricket match between Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)
Tinker sees echoes of Taylor. “He is not as flamboyant as an Alistair Campbell; he is more like Brendan Taylor. Both Brian and Brendan are similar at this age.”
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Bennett keeps his game simple. “If your defence is strong, not much can trouble you,” he told the Daily Sun. “Our coach, Justin (Sammons), always says, ‘If you can keep out the bowler’s best ball, you’re hard to get out.’ So it’s about having a strong defence, being patient, and then putting the bad ball away.”
AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli are his heroes. RCB is his IPL team. “I do watch it every year when I’m at home. My team is RCB. So, yeah, definitely the IPL is one of the bucket list things to happen,” he told Cricbuzz. But the bigger ambition is simpler. “I just want to make Zimbabwe very competitive again, compete against the big teams, compete in every World Cup that comes.”
When Bennett isn’t training, he goes to the farm in Ruwa where his parents live. He plays golf. The net is still there in Goromonzi. The one Kelly built. David farms tobacco now. Brian farms runs. No bowler has dismissed him this tournament.
English (US) ·