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our coaching and administrative staff hav targeted a return to test cricket within the next 18months..we hav seen great improvement in the quality of our domestic cricket thus attracting a few international players from other countries..we hav seen the rise of ray price to #2 in the world rankings, coventry's 194*, masakadza's two 150+ innings and the emergence of kyle jarvis as a bowler who offers us sum pace and the joy of watchin mpofu improve with every outing..now wat im askin u as zim fanatix is wat do we need to do to get to test cricket..the re-opening of an academy would b a start. gettin our youngsters back would b another(eg ballance ENG, aliseni SA, panyangara?), more ODI cricket, new cpt?...your opinion is highly regarded..

More 4 day cricket will do us good . More games aginst the A sides will bring the real practice that we need . In one day situations one does no have the time to develop their skills . Its a here and there game . So i suggest we tour and play A sides , continue playing the top nations in ODIs , probably send a Select team maybe to play First class cricket India if they genuinely wanted to help our test reaturn( like when the Chevrons played in SA MTN tourney ) , get as many of our players to play in the County system when in The ZIm winter break .Playing time is what these chappies were missing .The Intecontinental cup is a place we can send our other players to play .
Our pool of players has suddenly become bigger and we need to build a momentum from there .

11 players good enough to play at that level. Taibu, price and maybe Masakadza only test class players in Zim cricket. If Ye start playing tests again it will be easy innings victories in 3 days for your opponents

For all our hope, Zimbabwe is shit by international standard.

When the current side becomes their 'A' side.
With juniors coming through.
And fast bowlers.
Then they should be allowed back.

ZIMDOGGY wrote:For all our hope, Zimbabwe is shit by international standard.

Is there any way current team can benefit from your vast experience? Your failed debut and oblivation of hard hitter Pete rinke excites similarity. What went wrong with you two that can be rectified Sir!

I'm not being mean or anything, but I still think you have a long way to go. I mean, you need more than 11 test match standard players to play competitively at test level (I think you have 2 or 3 test match standard players at the moment...). A couple of injuries/retirements, and you'll find yourselves with innings defeats every other week! I know that the domestic cricket is improving in Zimbabwe and that is very good, but a player like Greg Lamb scoring big runs is a prime example. He's not test match standard, he couldn't even get into the first Hampshire team never mind facing the likes of Steyn,Anderson,Johnson etc. I think 18 months is way to short.

I think what is needed is that you need to focus on the younger players and send them to England/Australia club/county cricket/academy and let them learn there. The more experience they get in different conditions the better.

I agree with what FlowerPower says that you should play 'A' teams as that should help. I just don't see this generation of cricketers (Masakadza,Utesya,Price etc) able to compete with test match teams. How about playing Ireland and Afghanistan in a kind of test match series? Ireland want test cricket and Afghanistan are a up and coming cricket nation it'd be good to see if you could compete with them before taking on the real test nations.

Anyway, what do I know? I hope there right that in 18 months time you are ready !

Go Zimbabwe!

I think that Greg Lambs in the top 5 best batsmen in the country atm no doubt, but thats right.
He cant crack Hampshire....

You know how easy it is to crack county cricket?
I could crack county cricket if i tried hard.
Anthony Ireland even plays county.

Even Sean Ervine is a County reg.....Sean Ervine couldnt crack W.A in the Australian state team structure.

You see where im going with this homie G?

ZIMDOGGY wrote:I think that Greg Lambs in the top 5 best batsmen in the country atm no doubt, but thats right.
He cant crack Hampshire....

You know how easy it is to crack county cricket?
I could crack county cricket if i tried hard.
Anthony Ireland even plays county.

Even Sean Ervine is a County reg.....Sean Ervine couldnt crack W.A in the Australian state team structure.

You see where im going with this homie G?

Ireland's not a regular in County Cricket, and he's also a decent bowler, and the reason why Ervine couldn't crack W.A. is because the Shield is of a very tough, even higher than some test series.

while bangladesh continues to play test cricket and still ever improving with results becoming tighter there is no reason zim shouldnt make a return soon there are only 4 teams in world cricket that stay consistantly competative Australia/India/South Africa and England...

Horo wrote:while bangladesh continues to play test cricket and still ever improving with results becoming tighter there is no reason zim shouldnt make a return soon there are only 4 teams in world cricket that stay consistantly competative Australia/India/South Africa and England...

I second that these are the teams we can have a go at in our imitial return
1.Bangladesh
2.West Indies
3. Pakistan

Their levels are not so far from the reach of ZIm . If we keep and put up solid structures that are better than these contries who knows we would now be knocking in the top 5