Chakabva made his first-class debut for Northerns in an April 2007 Logan Cup match against Easterns. Opening the batting, he made scores of 0 and 5 in the match. After just four first-class matches for his province and with a top score of 35, he was picked for a Zimbabwe A side. He made his first half-century against a South African academy side in August 2007. Chakabva was then selected for a Zimbabwe Provinces side to play in South African domestic competition in the 2007–08 season; he made his maiden first-class century against Namibia in this tournament.

In October 2008, Chakabva was selected in the squad for the Zimbabwe national team for the 2008 Quadrangular Twenty20 Series in Canada. He made his international debut in a Twenty20 International match against Pakistan on 12 October 2008. Playing as a specialist batsman (Tatenda Taibu was the wicket-keeper) he scored one run before being run out. Pakistan won the match by seven wickets. Zimbabwe would go on to finish third in the tournament.

After this tournament, the Zimbabwe side went to Nairobi, Kenya, for a series of One Day International matches against Kenya and Ireland. Chakabva made his One Day International debut against Kenya on 19 October, this time as wicket-keeper with Taibu playing as a specialist batsman. Chakabva scored 41 runs from 44 balls and was the last wicket to fall as Zimbabwe lost by 95 runs.^[7]

In 2010, Chakabva toured Canada and the Netherlands with the Zimbabwean side. Following the readmission of Zimbabwe to Test cricket in 2011, he made his Test debut against New Zealand at Bulawayo in November that year, keeping wicket and scoring 37 and 5 batting at number seven.^[8][9]

Chakabva scored his maiden Test century on 3 July 2014 against Bangladesh at Khulna. However, Zimbabwe lost the match.^[10]

Test centuries