Where to from here?

[Googly]

I haven't seen SL of late but they have got no chance against England, they Re a serious team.

[Kriterion_BD]

I haven't seen SL of late but they have got no chance against England, they Re a serious team.

England's limited overs form is poor. Afghans have a good spin attack. England have to associates many times pver the past 5 years.

[Googly]

Ya fair point about their form against good spin.

[Googly]

But not this time. Let's see. The batting coaching and the training aids these days makes preparation so much easier. These new bowling machines and artificial surfaces can replicate most conditions quite closely. England will be well prepared and they have got some serious batsmen.

[zimbos_05]

Sadly, the players we say that must be promoted from the youth ranks seem to be white players. ZC pro Zanu board does not like that. They only want to give the black players and those who are loyal to their mission the chances. The white players do not worry, they have enough opportunity abroad and will take that opportunity if given the chance.

It has been said for the last ten years, the only thing that needs to happen is for ZC to be dissolved and started from scratch with people who actually give a damn about the sport. Those people exist, but they just never allowed the chance to take over, mostly because they are white, and once again Zim has become a country full of racist leaders who can not even fathom the idea of anyone other than a black person doing good. Corruption is now the rule of law, and no one frankly cares enough to do anything about it.

We have some quality coaches in the setup. It is almost impossible to believe that our players are going through training sessions and then going out on to the field and playing as badly as they are. In T20 its like we think that 130 is as good as we can do. Anything higher and we have done legendary and will definitely win. In ODI, the mark is 240.

We keep giving chances to players who have done nothing. Mutumbami has an average of 22 and 18 in domestic OD and T20 respectively. Not something you expect from your wicketkeeper especially batting so high up the order. Moor is 20 and 24 respectively. Whilst not as good OD side, he has played about 50 less games than Richie. Comparing these two to De Kock who bats high up the order, his average is 40 and 33 respectively. I know many of you will say that De Kock is in a different league talent wise, which is true, but the man is only 23. He is much younger than these players yet has the maturity and experience of a player who is of the age of Richie and Peter.

There is something serious wrong at the ground level and this is through the administration. The only thing that can fix our team is a change of administration, and it has to be the right people. No two ways about it. You can see the issues in the minute details. Kit for example. Same kit since the WC with no actual kit manufacturer and no actual sponsors. That is terrible from a business side of things. Seeing as the business side is all these damn crooks care about, you would think that they would have at least done something about that, but they haven't, because they cant be bothered.

Then to send your players off demanding they win the tournament or else. The team is ranked 14th (correct me if im wrong) in world T20 cricket, having just received a hiding home and away to Afghanistan and you are telling them to win the tournament or else. Mukhulani is a seriously sick man. Everyone who has been in charge of ZC since 04 (excuse Manase) is one big crook and is destroying the game and they could not care less. If someone said to me that they would let me run ZC for a year, I would do it for free. Because I love the team, the game, and most importantly the fans way too much. Its time that the crooks started paying for their thievery.

[eugene]

Unfortunately Zimbabwe has a culture now which makes it impossible for someone to work for the common good. If a white tries to bring about any meaningful change they are sunk immediately by the cry of racism. If a black tries to improve things, they are branded as colonial sympathizers. It is tragedy what has happened to Zimbabwe over the last 20 years particularly.

[foreignfield]

Look,
I'm reading a lot lately about people remarking on the players body language and versions levels of passion. Player x celebrated a lot when he got this wicket but player y didn't celebrate his at all so fuck him let's end his career. That type of thing.

I don't think we can read alot into it, especially not in this gentlemanly game where extroverted outburst are frowned upon as a whole. It's just how individual players react according to their own personality levels.
Some players are meek and shy and are self reflecting after a wicket, others are out there and eccentric.

It's been my experience that crickey tends to attract the meek and milder personalities.

A sport like boxing attracts the egotistical self promoters.
Can you imagine proper utseya as a boxer?
Can you imagine Anthony Mundine or even Myhammed Ali carry on like they do in cricket?

I agree with that a lot. It doesn't help to denigrate other people's character. Especially us armchair fans are not even remotely in a position to judge the players' personalities properly. It's an easy way to vent one's frustration (and I have been culpable of that myself), and it's a common way for fans to react in all team sports if results are bad ... but if you take a look at yourself you realise you wouldn't want to be judged by strangers who know zilch about what's really going on in your mind.

The team is lacking talent and self-belief, which makes it so difficult to turn things around.

Overall, I think we are par for the tournament, as far as my low expectations are concerned. Moving on from the last ODI world cup we lost 50% of our batting strength in BT, we lost our best T20 bowler before the tournament, and Chatara is still on the way back to where he was (a promising seamer with a lot to learn in death bowling), plus we had to beat a team that is simply better in this format because they have a much better bowling attack. To get out of the group we needed everything to click, and it didn't.

Where to from here? Limping on, hopefully with some genuine young talent brought in.

[Kriterion_BD]

The following is an edited version of my thoughts on an identical thread on BC (http://banglacricket.com/alochona/showt ... hp?t=46655):

As someone who has followed Zimbabwe closely for the past 3-4 years I can say that Zimbabwe cricket cannot progress for several reasons.

Firstly, the talent simply doesn't exist. Hard work, mental toughness, and a certain degree of jeed (Bengali word that is loosely translated as "obstinate childlike temper tantrum or fussiness"...zed in Urdu) and arrogance can often make inherently less skilled outfits competitive. But there is a limit, and besides that Zimbabwe as a team lack those attributes anyways. Since Heath Streak led the rebel walkout in April 2004, Zimbabwe have only produced 3 players who were of genuine class in one or all formats:

Taylor (all formats)
Cremer (all formats)
Jarvis (Tests only)

They have won just 14 games across all formats against top 8 teams, many of those against weakened understrength sides. The above 3 players were the only ones capable of turning a game all by themselves against a top team. Of course they are all white, and as the white players leave, cricket goes down the drain. Correlation and causation. This is because only the white players learn the game from their familes amd from childhood. The blacks pick it up much later and don't have a culture or tradition for it. The allegation now is that many of them are only in it for the money.

Guys like Masakadza, Williams, Chatara are OK, but only on a relative scale. Masakadza was largely a failure at the 2015 World Cup, and was a total bust here. Never rated the guy and this is why. Williams is talented but inconsistent. I am beginning to derate him. Also tends to fail in pressure situations (enter Hhm?)

Everyone else is submediocre to varying degrees.

Secondly the players are either unable or unwilling to learn, most likely the latter because Down Syndrome children have grasped the details of quantum mechanics quicker than these guys have learned cricket. Schoolboy errors are made with religious regularity, no matter who the coach is bowlers can't stop bowling full tosses or long hops at the death, and the batsmen get bogged dowm regardless of the strength of the opposition bowling attack. They have played Afghanistan in about 20 internationals over the past 18 months and look more outclassed now than they did in the beginning. There is zero adaptation or adjustmemt being made, whereas all opponents are constantly reassessing and acting accordingly.

Third, the players are lazy. Too many of them are unfit and overweight. The body language indicates they don't care about the game. There is no pride, no self esteem, no arrogance. They don't believe they can beat anyone.

Fourth, their administration sucks but everyone knows that. But perfect admins wouldn't help the current lot. Only if they got all the white players who hve left. Taylor, Ballance, Javis, Curran bros, Welch, Byrom, and many others.

The one thing they can do, is start putting in young players. They cannot possibly do worse than the current bunch. There is some talent in Murray, Ives, Mugarira, Matigumu, Ngarava, and Mavuta. They all need to come in now, the curremt team is all 30+ and have sucked for over a decade. That is the only hope of this team making the next World Cup.

[ZIMDOGGY]

The Banglayank is right.
The talent isnt there.

Everyone always throws up suggestions and reasons and this and that but the fact of the matter is its all mathematics.

Small playing population= Small playing pool.

^behind the 8 ball already.

World class juniors or seniors leave. See BT/Kyle/Ballance.

^Now we are kneecapped by daefault when we are in no position to retain these players. The ceiling has been set.

Kids leaving Zimbabwe.

^This is the killer,The pipeline is operating at 10% capacity. How can we play if we cant retain juniors? There is nochance.

The ones that stay get brought into a losing culture and eventually join them and get fat and lazy.

[ZIMDOGGY]

lets look at the u/19s team 4 years ago that played India, a bit of 'where are they now'?

KT Kasuza
L Masasire - Gone
MSM Bentley* -Gone
R Burl Was gone, came back.
MB Lake -Gone
LM Jongwe
CR Light - Gone
NP Mayavo†
P Zimwa
KD Bowie was gone, came back
C Musoko.


Thats over half the team have emigrated, dropped out, or given up the sport.
Take out Jongwe and its almost read like the top 6.


What other teams can function with that dropout rate? wheres the competition?