Zimbabwe cricketer Ryan Burl on Saturday came forward to ask for sponsorship for his national team by posting an image of worn-out shoes on his Twitter handle.

“Any chance we can get a sponsor so we don’t have to glue our shoes back after every series?” the 27-year-old wrote with a crying emoji. He also tagged a sports manufacturer and United Kingdom-based International Cricket Association.

His post, which now has more than 2,200 retweets, quickly blew up on the microblogging site. 

Most Twitter users were shocked to see the heartbreaking situation of leg-spinner Burl’s ripped shoes alongside some glue and other tools.

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A user commented, “As a cricket lover this is heart breaking to see. I mean as a cricket fraternity Boards like BCCI ,CA and ECB should support them because they have potential to make cricket great.Also good on Pakistan to tour Zimbabwe because it helps them financially.”

“ICC badly failed to make cricket a global game, even a team ranked b/w 5 to 10 is a bad ranking!” another wrote.

Zimbabwe has been struggling on the cricket front for quite some time now due to its financial constraints and poor-field performances.

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In July 2019, the International Cricket Council (ICC) suspended Zimbabwe and it couldn’t participate in the T20 World Cup Qualifiers later that year. The country was reinstated by the apex cricket body in October. Since then, most of their tours got cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Burl has represented Zimbabwe across all formats. He has played three Tests, 18 ODIs, and 25 T20Is since making his international debut in 2017.