2023 World Cup Qualifier discussion

[tej_27]

News going around the circle is . Netherlands will miss their entire group of county guys except bas de leede . apparently Tom Cooper is not available too. So they will be missing services of ackerman, klassen, van meekeren, van der merwe, van der gugten . Might miss services of van Beek and Tim Pringle also who are currently involved in NZ

Yeah 90% sure there will be no County guys except de Leede, who's apparently only staying for as long as the Dutch have a chance of qualifying (so potentially bad news for ZIM if the Dutch make top three in the group with no points carried forward, as he'll likely play group games but maybe not Super Sixes vs SL/IRE/Whoever). Van Beek will likely be there, Pringle's still injured. I'm told they're not picking Ross ter Braak either (which is mental IMO) so pretty samey right arm seam attack. Expect an official announcement this week but word is it's a very "thanks for training" squad. Kids are better than they were though. Could still upsert some teams.

Any of you lovely peeps know for sure what venues they're using? Last I heard plan was Queens and HSC with proper camera set up, then BAC and Takashinga with livestreams? Was surprised they'd go with Takashinga over OH, but not seen the state of either recently.

Ohh so sad Bertus .in an ideal world Netherlands with full of county guys would have been a serious contender . Also don't think it's in the hands of cambo right ? Or else Micheal Jones for Scotland would also have been released

[Bertus de Jong]

You can blame the ICC for putting the tournament slap bang in the middle of the Blast. I'm usually pretty hawkish on mandatory release but the Blast is bankrolling a lot of Counties and most of these guys are white ball specialists. The Blast is a substantial part of what they're getting paid for, and Associate boards generally can't compensate counties for call-ups. Plus I'm not sure Scotland even asked for Jones tbh, and like a lot of the absent Dutch guys he's not a product of their domestic system, so it's hard to assert a moral claim. Obviously it's never really a free choice for players despite the rules, but I also don't think it's always the counties leaning on players either. Plenty of guys would rather play the Blast I suspect, either out of loyalty to the team they play with every week or because they've a better chance of landing a gig in the Hundred or some other League playing blast than on some garbage livestream nobody's watching at a tournament most cricket fans still don't know is happening.

Plus both NED and SCO were long-shots to get through anyway though IMO. The real losers here ar the ICC, though I suspect they're too stupid or uninterested to realise it. It's their tournament that it hurts, along with international cricket in general. Expect this sort of thing to start happening with Full Members soon enough too, once they realise they can no more compete with franchise salaries than Associates can with a county contract.

[sam_ahm]

I think that pretty much sums up the thinking of Netherlands and Scotland that they are not giving themselves much of a chance to qualify anyways ahead of SL, WI, IRE and ZIM. I think the focus of those teams is the T20 WC and they will probably be more serious about 2027 WC when there will be 14 spots.

I mean I'm not saying that if they play full strength they can't qualify, of course they can, may be they can even now, just that they are not taking it seriously.

[secretzimbo]

Any of you lovely peeps know for sure what venues they're using? Last I heard plan was Queens and HSC with proper camera set up, then BAC and Takashinga with livestreams? Was surprised they'd go with Takashinga over OH, but not seen the state of either recently.

Ya it's Takashinga. It all makes sense when you realise that for hosting the tournament ZC have received a chunk of cash to upgrade facilities......the ZC Managing Director also happens to be the president of Takashinga CC No surprise that all the facilities money has gone on a 'revamp' of Taka.

They haven't played on it for several months until last weekend when there was a club match and both sides were all out for 70.

OH albeit still pretty much a club ground has a much better quality square and also better facilities for the players. But it's Zimbabwe so of course we are instead going to make world-class cricketers trudge over to that absolute dump all because our esteemed MD hasn't already stole enough funds over the years and fancies some more.

[secretzimbo]

They should have used Kwekwe again. All the advertising and sponsors hoardings from the 2018 tournament are still there proudly on display, untouched

[Googly]

I see somebody has butchered most of the magnificent 80 year old Brazilian Coffee trees that lined OH.
From a picturesque club ground it now looks awful. The brutally expensive new fence is presumably to protect the mountain load of firewood for sale that's a new side business.

[tej_27]

Groups finally confirmed by ICC
GROUP A
Westindies
Zimbabwe
Netherlands
Nepal
Usa

GroupB
Srilanka
Ireland
Scotland
Uae
Oman
We play our first game on Nepal on 18th June

[zimbos_05]

I would say its a tough group, but this purely off recent form of ourselves

[secretzimbo]

I'd rather play WI than SL any day, so I think we've lucked out with the group actually.

We'll qualify for the Super 6 easily, just a case of not slipping up against a weaker side at any point as thats what will hurt us when it comes to progressing beyond that.

Zim vs WI on Sat 24th June will be a heck of a fixture.

[secretzimbo]

I would say its a tough group, but this purely off recent form of ourselves

Haven't we just had probably the best 12 months in memory?