aydee wrote:Tinashce Ruswa wrote:
we have 15+ players who are Zimbabwean playing pro cricket in SA
Really?
Who? I'm not aware of any Zimbabweans even playing the second tier of SA 1st class cricket, let alone fully pro franchise cricket...
Because of the new regulations now they cannot play for the amateur side but are have been part of academies USSASA teams, SA CLUB champs and are playing as 1st league pros in their respective provinces..some are captains etc .Most of them went over as University students and are now local pros n their various leagues[/quote]
I see. To be fair there is a big difference between being a club pro, and playing pro cricket.
Names?[/quote]
Mate maybe the name of the teams differ but speaking from personal experience my team before I came over to Durham have Chico , Langerveldt, G. Rabie, Rowan Richards, A Aodumo, K Bennet, F Plaitjies, S Simetu..just one team and we had a Zimbabwean born opener K.Samunderu and we played against D Thelo WPCC, V Philander TKanning Parklands CC, ten doeschate WPCC, to mention but a few etc etc .From this you can see that 1A pro league in Cape Town is not your average club cricket league..that said we were a Cricketing Institution.. composed of players form SA academy E Van WYK, R RAMOO M Serame etc but the essence is that within that you had Zimbabwean in there who were exelling and pulling their weight.So for example the speeds that some of our lads are having difficulty in playing you have others facing them on the regularly i.e Plaitjies tec in the nets.
This is but a sample size of only those you have in the WC and to that you have three other ex Zim U10 WC players Mashonganyika etc in the training squads and having the odd game or two in 1A pro league.
In other parts of SA you have A Chirinda another opener playing in EC and at NMMU one of the top three University cricket teams in SA.If you know cricket in SA you would know that the USSASA pro league is a tough one with players from warriors Lions and Titans making the bulk of their University sides.
In KZN you have P Tsvanhu, T Chihota captain of the University and KZN inland provincial SA Club champs recent entries and Penford before the foreign based player legislation was changed they played amateurs as well.
These are to mention a few examples and as you can see C. Baxter, Plaitjies, Khun,Pangiso,S Cook, Das Neves , E O Oreilly etc from USSASA make the leagues competitive and the players far different form what you guys might term average league cricketers..
I am currently in the UK @ the moment with British Northern Universities with the Co Durham WTP and what I have seen of the so called leagues that our players from AFRICA come over from home and play leaves a lot to be desired these clubs play tier two or tier three cricket..n I know University second teams that can give these or county two teams a very good run..SA has a solid system indeed n I believe Zimbabwe should harvest the benefits of its players who have been blooded there.
