Macauley Bonne’s exclusion from the Warriors squad is not a case of him being overlooked, it’s more to do with lack of commitment on the part of the in-form striker, sources have said.

The 25-year old has had a brilliant start to the 2021/22 League 1 season for Ipswich Town, for whom he has scored seven goals so far.

Despite that rich vein of form, the striker’s name was not in the 24-man provisional Warriors squad for the upcoming World Cup qualifiers against Ghana, named by recently-appointed interim coach Norman Mapeza, yesterday.

The move surprised many fans but it has emerged that despite UK-based players not being available for the last qualifiers against South Africa and Ethiopia, Bonne had not responded to the Warriors call, which is why the Mapeza-led technical team decided to not bother him.

“Look, the player was called by the former coach (Zdravko Logarusic) for the previous two games (against South Africa and Ethiopia), and despite his name being in the squad, he never communicated if he was coming or not, well before it was confirmed that UK-based players will not travel to Zimbabwe,” a source at ZIFA told Soccer24.

“The new technical team simply decided not to call him because of his lack of commitment,” he added.

Another source in the newly appointed technical team, who spoke to this publication on condition of anonymity, questioned Bonne’s seriousness to the Warriors cause.