Who do you think is the most promising player in Zimbabwe?

[foreignfield]

It is telling that we are mainly talking about bowlers, and somewhat worrying that there are not more young bats coming through in domestic cricket. Hence the excitement about young Kasuza, who is really just finding his feet in first-class cricket. Looking at the rather dispiriting results of the U-19 side in the last few years one can always find a bit of solace in the bowling department, but the batsmen were struggling to put up meaningful scores even against associate sides. Not surprisingly all the youngster who have established themselves as consistent performers at domestic level in the last couple of seasons are bowlers: Chatara, Ncube, Mushangwe, Mutombozi, Nathan Waller ..., likewise the slightly older age bracket of Meth, Jarvis, or even Cremer (although he seems to have been around forever)

Are we just going through a lean patch, or is there something amiss in the set-up as far as batting is concerned?

[hhm]

Are we just going through a lean patch, or is there something amiss in the set-up as far as batting is concerned?

The reasons are very simple and obvious. The senior batsmen are too scared and inept against the new ball so they're packing positions 3/4-6 instead. Unfortunately that means the young batsmen(who should normally be introduced from #6 position), are struggling upfront against the above average seamers you refer to as being established, who collect easy wickets and boost their figures rather ficticiously! The senior batsmen (Waller, Mutizwa, Hami. Matsi etc) on the other hand come in later on and cash in - getting ridiculous scores and averages aginst the tiring average bowling.

The result has been that the superiors lack trust in those young batsme, and continue to place their faith on the 'old' batsmen who get found out at international level due to lacking exposure against the new ball. The bowlers on the other hand get free passes to international level on the back of these figures, wher ein turn they're also horribly exposed!

In simple terms we're stuck with a future of untested young seamers to lead us into the future, a bunch of unrefined senior batsmen, and a heap of demoralised young batsmen (Raza, Kasuza, Roy Kaia) who believe they're no longer good enough because of constant failures and no starts in the top order, and frustrations!

Makeup of national team 5 years from now - genuinely poor bowlers plus not necessarily poor batsmen but confused&illdeveloped!

[foreignfield]

Thanks for the answer, hhm, not that there was anything new in there. But my question does not concern first-class cricket but rather age-group or schools cricket and the obvious imbalance between bat and ball as far as the talent pool is concerned.

[takleg]

Ryan Burl is another player to watch. He's been destroying bowlers in schools cricket.