Rwanda v Zimbabwe | ICC T20 Qualifier | 27 November 2023

[secretzimbo]

Andrea, you suggest we are at risk of losing our funding.
I think that’s highly unlikely.

We have been shite for twenty years and the ICC still chuck money at us.

We are, thankfully, in the extremely privileged position of being inside the tent pissing out. Uganda or even Italy could beat us 50 times in succession and we are unlikely to lose Full Member status or funding.

Cricket is very unfair but I guess from a Zim perspective we should be very thankful for that.

[andrea lanzoni]

Andrea, you suggest we are at risk of losing our funding.
I think that’s highly unlikely.

We have been shite for twenty years and the ICC still chuck money at us.

We are, thankfully, in the extremely privileged position of being inside the tent pissing out. Uganda or even Italy could beat us 50 times in succession and we are unlikely to lose Full Member status or funding.

Cricket is very unfair but I guess from a Zim perspective we should be very thankful for that.

If ICC keeps pouring money to Zimbabwe I'm really glad and I truly hope they continue for the years to come.
However, my experience is that whenever there are privileges, sooner or later they collapse. Especially when it is money privilege.

Due to massive immigration from subcontinent, continental Europe is no longer only Holland. In the future many Countries will call ICC for more. Although still much weaker than Zimbabwe under an agonistic point of view, States of European Union are political heavyweights.
This will be even more as cricket is now an Olympic sport: local olympic committes will now pay more attention to cricket than before.

Italy, for instance receives app. 250.000€ from ICC.
The level of our cricket is miserable comparing with Zimbabwe. The number of cricketers is not: we really have thousands and thousands of cricketers here.
Of course 99.99% of them coming from indian subcontinent.

Cricketers of Italy are thus all but affluent: many of them came to Europe on a boat. Here they have minimum wage (when not jobless).
Cricket in Italy is a poor sport played by poor people.
There are less than twenty just decent ground in the whole peninsula, none of them with natural turf pitch, thinking of floodlights a joke.
Many top teams play their home matches on baseball grounds.

Just one thousand cricketers play real hard ball cricket in Italy. Several thousands play tapeball. Tapeball is essentially budget-free: just a cheap bat and no kit or ground maintenace required.

So Zimbabwe and Italy have in common that grassroots cricket is pennyless. In such scenario both Countries can pursue a basis of tapeball cricketers.
I'd prefer to have in Zimbabwe thousands and thousands of kids playing tapeball in parking lots rather than a few pampered preppy students attending a local cricket Academy.
I'm convinced that out of thousands of tapeball bowlers, you already have five or six unknown Musarabani: you just have to let them show their potential.

If such unknown Blessings may also envisage that a moderate living can be made if succeeding in cricket, you'll experience a stampede of kids totally involved to succeed.
500 cricketers in the entire Country? It would be something of the old days.

So my recipe is still:

- 15% of ICC funds to be tied to players salaries. Let's try first before doubting if it may or not be effective in the short term.

- an almost no cost massive development campaign of tapeball among lower classes schools and poor neighbourhoods.

- a (not overwheming) investment in floolights in Harare and Bulawayo: matches are to be attended when people are away from work and have time to hang out.

- domestic leagues properly televised. This is easier that what it seems. Only one camera, positioned on a scaffolding, is sufficient to zoom after the ball is hit and cameraman follows the ball being helped by the movement of fielders. This technique is applied in europe for the Europe Cricket Series. I can vouch for it as the Italy chapter of ECS is hosted by my club on our ground. One camera is sufficient, a second camera for something 'more fancy'.
This is not what I see in Zim domestic cricket on YouTube: there is only one camera but does not follow the ball after it's hit. It remains steady on the pitch. Sorry: it's unacceptable. Peoples zaps away after a couple of minutes.
Since having a YouTube channel is another almost zero budget opportunity, Zimbabwean domestic matches may have then audience from Europe and indian subcontinent. With foreign audience you get foreign advertisers in a virtuous circle.
Back to European Cricket Series as a benchmark: it is a pool of tournaments with a quality of players light years worse than domestic Zim matches, yet the audience on the YouTube live matches is in the range of tens of thousands of viewership.

The four steps I envisaged above seem to me not yet implemented in Zimbabwe. I reccomend with the local knowledge that I miss, you may fine tune them.
The alternative (to me) seems only self complaining or chasing diaspora potential players which may give just a modest input in the short and medium term.

[secretzimbo]

If ICC keeps pouring money to Zimbabwe I'm really glad and I truly hope they continue for the years to come.
However, my experience is that whenever there are privileges, sooner or later they collapse. Especially when it is money privilege.

Due to massive immigration from subcontinent, continental Europe is no longer only Holland. In the future many Countries will call ICC for more. Although still much weaker than Zimbabwe under an agonistic point of view, States of European Union are political heavyweights.
This will be even more as cricket is now an Olympic sport: local olympic committes will now pay more attention to cricket than before.

Cricket is a big boys club and Zimbabwe are, relative to the 90 other associates, one of the big boys. I'm not sure we deserve to be, but for whatever reason we are. We are incredibly lucky, from a selfish point of view.
The ICC exists only in name, has almost no power or resource, and is entirely controlled by the 12 full members (In reality the big three). Turkeys don't vote for christmas mate. Unfortunately cricket is highly unlikely to be democratised or equalised in the next decade or two.
Countries have been asking the ICC for more for decades mate and the ICC has continually told them to fuck off. There is next to zero appetite for growth or development of the game globally amongst the full members.

Like I say, we could lose to Italy every day of the year and nothing would happen. It sucks but thats cricket unfortunately. The least equal sport in the world.

As I say, it's shit but thankfully from a Zim perspective we are inside the tent.



What's more likely is India continuing to increase their % allocation at each passing revenue cycle, and all of the other full members (and associates) all collectively seeing their % shrink in equal measures. But I think it's extremely unlikely that other nations currently outside the tent will ever see a vast uplift in funding at the expense of any of the current full members. No matter how bad we perform.