Road to the England Test 2025

[zimbot]

Hey all!

This Test is kind of a big deal imo. Even though the match is 3 months away, I thought we'd get a little discussion going. Which players should we be looking out for heading into the match? I hear it's an age old ZCF tradition to just drop by and tell people your favourite 11, mine below, but it has some gaps:

Ben Curran
TK Kaitano
Nick Welch
Craig Ervine (c)
Sean Williams
??? [Is Raza available?]
Brian Bennett
??? (wk) [Who are the contenders?]
Brad Evans - [a totally biased pick, but he should be in the team]
Richard Ngarava
Blessing Muzarabani

Call me crazy, but I wouldn't complain if they found a spot for Timycen Maruma somewhere in that lineup. The guy has scored some runs in Logan Cup and that should count for something.

With all that being said, I pray to God we don't get walloped inside 2 days. I hope we can at least push them to the final day. Who knows maybe we can squeeze out a lucky draw if one of the days gets washed out.

Thoughts?

[mnelson68]

Evans not selected in either of the A squads to play Durham which is extremely dissapointing.

[Pat_Bee]

??? [Is Raza available?]

Djibouti t20 slam that week I think bro.

[Pat_Bee]

I’d take chats wouldn’t bother with a specialist spinner.

I think we can cause an upset bazball has a 50% win rate and 0 draws, so 50% loss rate.

[tawac]

Shocking that Zimbabwe does not have a keeper at the moment. We could literally coin toss it because there is not much difference between all the keeper available.

And also a toss up between having specialist spinner or an extra batter. Raza, Williams and Bennet can hold an end though in part.

[ZIMDOGGY]

Not that huge a deal.

If we are going purely on best team at present, maybe this?

1 Prince
2 Curran
3 Welch
4 Williams
5 Ervinator
6 Raza
7 Bennett
8 Joylord
9 Evans
10 Blessing
11 Ngarava

Probably wont happen because quota is broken.

Alot of strain on Raza too as he is basically being picked as front line spinner here.

[Marshmallow]

Quota broken?

[TapsC2]

Not that huge a deal.

If we are going purely on best team at present, maybe this?

1 Prince
2 Curran
3 Welch
4 Williams
5 Ervinator
6 Raza
7 Bennett
8 Joylord
9 Evans
10 Blessing
11 Ngarava

Probably wont happen because quota is broken.

Alot of strain on Raza too as he is basically being picked as front line spinner here.

There is a very good chance that we will end up with a team like that. Maybe Evans being the only person who doesn't play here.

[TapsC2]

I'm looking at those squads for the Durham matches and I don't see Gumbie. Or Maru. Makes me wonder if they have decided to give Mayavo an extended run. I don't see any other option. I would have actually tried Maru. He has a decent FC record. Might be the wild card keeper option.

[aydee]

I'm looking at those squads for the Durham matches and I don't see Gumbie. Or Maru. Makes me wonder if they have decided to give Mayavo an extended run. I don't see any other option. I would have actually tried Maru. He has a decent FC record. Might be the wild card keeper option.

He'd be my choice. Him and Madande have the best red ball records of all the candidates, and both are likely to be around for many years and have comfortably their best cricket ahead of them. Can't be said of Gumbie, Tsiga or Mayavo. Out of those 3, I would like to Mayavo get a run though (red ball).