The Official Midwest Rhinos Supporters Club

[dylan]

good to see sidbanda continue his form from the intercotional cup with three hundredes in the last four innings

[Train Driver]

I never had any doubt that we would win this game, obviously ........

The first two days play did have me rather worried i have to admit, but that man turned things right around again, another superb display by Vusi 'Captain Fantastic' Sibanda. 4 hundreds in 4 Logan matches, 6 hundreds in 5 first class matches including 2 double hundreds, increased his career best 3 times already this season, 911 runs @ 113.88, what can you say ?

Lots of the players did their bit in this game of course, a dream debut for Dylon Higgins, that 3 wicket spell for Remembrance Nyathi in the 1st innings, 3 wickets for Mike Chinouya, a maiden 50 for Innocent Chikunya, just everybody did their bit, i would have liked to see us go into the break on top of the table, but 2nd is pretty good in my eyes, just wait till we get the boys back from Bangladesh ......

[Train Driver]

Oh dear

Not exactly what you would call our best performance of the season .......

A big effort from Solomon Mire, some runs for Friday Kasteni and a good try with the bat from Michael Chinouya to stay with Mire and put some respectability to the score, not a lot that can be said about the bowling though.

We certainly miss Taylor, Cremer and Waller but the loss of Mugochi and Rainsford from the last couple of games is a lot to bear for our squad, personally i'd rather see it how it's happened, winning the Logan match rather than the Faithwear, i'm old fashioned and put first class cricket above any of the limited overs stuff.

No more Rhinos cricket until our trip to Bulawayo on 16th November, hopefully we'll have a full strength side available again.

Meanwhile,

Logan Cup averages

http://stats.cricinfo.com/ci/engine/rec ... tournament

Faithwear averages

http://stats.cricinfo.com/ci/engine/rec ... tournament

[Train Driver]

The break is over with our lads in Bulawayo visiting the Tuskers today, it seems like a much longer break than it actually has been.

Some surprise news if cricinfo are correct, they are showing Riki Wessels in the side as wicket keeper, a very strong new signing if that is correct and cricinfo haven't gone totally bonkers, he will certainly strengthen the batting.

Todays team is being shown as

Sibanda*, Taylor, Cremer, Kasteni, Nyathi, Chinouya, Muzarabani, Chapungu, Wessels, Waller & Lewis

No places then for Rainsford or Mugochi, are they both injured ?, Mire also missing, is he still in Zim or has he been offered a place and left for Australia ? Chikunya and Robertson both left out along with Higgins, it's so frustrating that information is always so hard to get hold of.

Tuskers won the toss and are batting, let's hope the lads have a very short time in the field

[zimfan1]

Higgins will be doing his exams at the moment and i think Mire has left for Australia for a couple of years

[Train Driver]

I'm really pleased for Solomon Mire if it's all gone ahead and he has gone to Australia, it's a fantastic opportunity for both him, as an individual, and for Zim cricket if he is able to come back in a couple of years with some top class coaching behind him.

He's been showing some good progress this season so will be a great loss in the short term, best of luck to him if he's in Australia checking cricinfo for the Rhinos scores

[Train Driver]

We've let Tuskers off a bit in this game, 157-5 to 418 all out and only just managing to scrape the 3rd bowling point

42.2 overs out of 119.2 is a lot of bowling for Graeme Cremer, i've had the pleasure many a time of watching Mushtaq Ahmed rolling in for over after over, but the poor man could hardly walk at times and his career finished at least a couple of years earlier than it should have done with his knee completely shot. I know Cremer is a young man, but he shouldn't be overbowled too often.

We really need another couple of bowlers, if Rainsford is injured, Higgins unavailable, Mugochi out of favour ?, Mire gone ? while it seems as though Muzarabani, Lewis and Chinouya are struggling to make an impression, all in all, not a table topping bowling squad.

Shame about Wessels today, at least he can't do any worse in future, unless he trips over in the dressing room

[zimfan1]

We've let Tuskers off a bit in this game, 157-5 to 418 all out and only just managing to scrape the 3rd bowling point

42.2 overs out of 119.2 is a lot of bowling for Graeme Cremer, i've had the pleasure many a time of watching Mushtaq Ahmed rolling in for over after over, but the poor man could hardly walk at times and his career finished at least a couple of years earlier than it should have done with his knee completely shot. I know Cremer is a young man, but he shouldn't be overbowled too often.

We really need another couple of bowlers, if Rainsford is injured, Higgins unavailable, Mugochi out of favour ?, Mire gone ? while it seems as though Muzarabani, Lewis and Chinouya are struggling to make an impression, all in all, not a table topping bowling squad.

Shame about Wessels today, at least he can't do any worse in future, unless he trips over in the dressing room

We both know from watching county cricket for you in Sussex and me in Essex that Wessels is a quality player and was playing in the northamptonshire side as a batsman so i have no worries about him.

The bowling looks very week baring Cremer and Rainsford when he is fit, Lewis at least has been economical but we despratly need a couple of pace bowlers. Perhaps even trying to get another player over from England to fill the void but after the signing of Wessels im not sure if there is any money left in the kitty, particulary as im fairly sure that Brendan Taylor was not cheap to sign.

[Train Driver]

I was wondering how many opportunities you've had to watch Danish Kaneria bowl for Essex, zimfan1, he also seems to bowl an awful lot of overs and i believe that the PCB have been a bit touchy about him being overbowled in county cricket, does he cope with the workload alright or does he look worn out at times ?

A right funny old day for the Rhinos today then Sibanda playing the one man band part again in the 1st innings and Wessels making up for his blob in the 1st with a career best in the 2nd, BRM is going to need a lot of help tomorrow if we are going to get this one back out of the fire, just one complaint about our skipper, why, why, why, why did he not send a nightwatchman in when Wessels was out ? i don't understand why he went in himself with just a couple of overs to play

697 @ 77.44 in the Logan + 325 @ 325.00 in the Intercontinental Cup = 1022 @ 102.20 with 7 hundreds this season, maybe he's not such a bad old skipper after all

[zimfan1]

I was wondering how many opportunities you've had to watch Danish Kaneria bowl for Essex, zimfan1, he also seems to bowl an awful lot of overs and i believe that the PCB have been a bit touchy about him being overbowled in county cricket, does he cope with the workload alright or does he look worn out at times ?

Ive been working in Chelmsford the last two summers and have been a member of Essex and often managed to get down to the ground in my lunch hour and after work and as soon as Kaneria came in June the game plan completely changed and it become the "lets toss the ball the Kaneria and he can bowl all day attack" to be fair to the lad he performed fantastically and is the main reason why we managed to get promoted at the end of the season. It didnt seem to affect him to much in terms of fitness but long term it cant do him any favours which is why i think the Pakistan board were very unhappy about the number of overs he bowled. Now this season it doesn’t look like he will be available for much of the season due to the Pakistan series against Australia and the series against England. And unfortunately i think Essex will struggle unless they can sign a top class spin bowler.

But back to Cremer, it is good that he getting a lot of bowling as Shane Warne always says that a leg spinner needs to be bowling a lot of overs but i think asking Cremer to bowl 50 overs per innings and then make decent contributions with the bat is a bit much. Would be nice if we can get Dylon Higgins into the side after his exams to provide some rest for Cremer.

But as Ray Price says this guy has the potential to break all the records in Zimbabwe cricket with the ball