Durham tour of Zimbabwe

[Mueddie28]

Ainsley did impress but he is one of those guys who has a direct competitor. Sometimes you wonder how some of these guys would do if they were given a 10 game run in the team like their competition. He looked decent with the bat

Marumani and Madande have had they chances but here we are...

[Donald]

Parkinson and Raine are serious players and the others are not bad back up. Raine has over 450 first class wickets.
Last time we played durham in long format we got skittled for 89 and 162 while they piled on 400 odd and beat us by an innings. Has been some improvement at least.
The young leg spinner Chesa took 4 wickets against them last time. Wonder why he wasn't considered for this match.

[secretzimbo]

I would stick with Madande. He is a class player overall just looked a bit overawed with the occasion same as mpofu.

Why would one of our supposed hottest prospects, having played international cricket for 2 years and 35+ caps, be ‘overawed by the occasion’ playing a friendly against a county 2nd string?

If he was then our problems are even worse than I thought.


Technically deficient or ill prepared I can understand and I am used to, but emotionally overawed in a match like this?!?!?! If that’s true for any of our players we might as well give up

[secretzimbo]

Actually quite an achievement making them bat again.
My expectations were through the floor before this match.

[Donald]

I would stick with Madande. He is a class player overall just looked a bit overawed with the occasion same as mpofu.

Why would one of our supposed hottest prospects, having played international cricket for 2 years and 35+ caps, be ‘overawed by the occasion’ playing a friendly against a county 2nd string?

If he was then our problems are even worse than I thought.


Technically deficient or ill prepared I can understand and I am used to, but emotionally overawed in a match like this?!?!?! If that’s true for any of our players we might as well give up

ill prepared overawed whatever. Mpofu looked nervous to me and is the wrong side of 30 and maybe thinking this is his last shot for a test berth. Stakes are higher.
Madande has time on his side but his glove work in general leaves a lot to be desired and maybe this has had a negative impact on his batting.
The shot just before lunch on day 1 against ackerman was inexplicable by madande.

[TapsC2]

Did Innocent Kaia move to Australia permanently? I know he has had a club that he was playing for there for a few years now

[Googly]

Raine is a handful in English conditions, but with limited swing and seam he's bog standard. There was nothing exceptional from Durham in the bowling or batting dept.
They're just better at bowling and batting tighter. It's all stuff we should be doing. We could have made a much better game of that. Tighter bowling seems to induce really stupid shots with Zimbabwe batters, and it's red ball, no pressure, just block it out if you have to. They're missing 5 or 6 of their best players and we should have been way more competitive. The scorecard looked a lot grimmer than what was actually happening out there.
I thought they'd T20 their way to victory in their second innings needing only 60, but they were very circumspect.
Had we batted more sensibly and had a 150 run lead we'd have had a game on our hands.

Matty Welch is a really good prospect. He's got a little glitch where he pushes at the odd delivery he doesn't like. He just needs to tighten up and play it right under him. He could probably leave a bit better as well. He likes bat on ball which can cause problems as an opener, but he's got massive potential. I hope they give him the game next week.
Campbell played beautifully in the first innings and then played a really stupid shot in the second dig after only a handful of delivieries when he wasnt seeing it yet. He was landing his leggies really well. I was waiting for a couple more wrong 'uns or ones that went straight on, which he seemed reluctant to bowl, but he's a very decent leggie. I was very impressed. He can try too many variations but this time around possibly too few. Us armchair critics are never happy.
Madande's bizarre swipe would get you dropped from a lot of teams. We needed to bat long and he goes and does that? Inexplicable. He's had a lot of exposure to higher level cricket and he's not impressing me at all.
Ditto Marumani. So frustrating to watch a guy with supreme hand eye not think it through and play better.
Bennett played well, he certainly has the temperament for this. I'd like to have seen him bowl a few overs.
Ainsley had a great game. Bowled beautifully and batted well.
Nyauchi ran in and gave it 100% as he always does.
What a strange pitch, wasn't getting up more than about a foot yesterday afternoon, if it had gone to day 3 it would have been very interesting. I don't know what's going on with all our pitches these days. I don't recall them ever being this low. It makes everything front foot, which induces really poor habits.

[TapsC2]

Maybe a better option for our test team would be to move Gumbie to number 5 or 6 so that he can be the keeper. This might be better than persisting with Maru and Madande for now. Either that or they will make him “volunteer” to open and keep like Regis did in 1 game if remember correctly. If he does move then I got no idea who will open. Maybe Innocent but with who? You can’t risk Craig up there. That test is a must win for us.

Myers should be back in the mix by the time we go to Ireland and I would have him in the team if we assume Raza and Burl won’t be playing test matches. If we tour in August then maybe Raza will play because the CPL starts end of August. Burl for me doesn’t make our test team on merit

[secretzimbo]

I think Raza has probably played his last Test.


As for Inno, I don’t think it’s a permanent move. I certainly hope not!!! He generally goes over there for 2 months each year for a bit of club cricket. Hopefully he’s back.

I’m not sure why Gumbie isn’t playing. He has had an average Logan Cup yes, but he’s the incumbent test opener so surely he would benefit from playing here? I’d like to see Gumbie and Kaia have a run together in red ball.

No doubt they will probably pick Makoni again anyway

[ZIMDOGGY]

Do you think Raza has retired from test or will simply not prioritise test over any second rate t20 gig he may have at that time?

If he is free I think He would play