Zimco wrote: ↑Fri Nov 27, 2020 2:43 pm
ZIMDOGGY wrote: ↑Fri Nov 27, 2020 7:26 am
With Cremer,
He’s starting to get a bit sentimental it seems but you can’t just give up international test cricket for two years and come back equal or better. It’s just doesn’t happen. Leg spinner is a fine art and you need to be well tuned like a guitar and oiled.
When Cremer got belted in that Arab tournament a few months back that was no surprise to me.
That’s what I hate about zim cricket when I read about all these players coming and going.
So much momentum has been killed in stop start retirements and unretirements. Bligs, Carlisle were on their way to doing good things and came back after all their built up momentum stopped and they were useless.
Cremer the same.
All these young players that decide to take a three year break after the under 19s to go to uni (not part time or online like other sports) aren’t a lot better.
Whatever made you good enough to dominate under 19s level will be hard to sustain by playing club cricket or uni cricket.
The big obvious exception is the guys that go off to play county or first class cricket elsewhere and come back as good or better. But any idiot can figure out why that is.
My ultimate message to players is if you walk out you’re doing no one any favours to your cricketing career and to think very long and hard.
The uni guys especially can have it all if they play it better.
Yeah but blokes don't want to be selling scratch cards at 30 after they retired from FC/didn't make it for Zim. If FC in Zim paid I guarantee more blokes would stay and Zim would be better.
What Zim should do is get Zim blokes who play county and have a UK passport but aren't good enough to play for England a contract (money) and allow them to pay county in the season and select them when there is no county. I assume that would be allowed? Only reason Taylor and Jarvis couldn't do that was as they were kollpak I assume. Steal these players back.
But like I have said a hundred times, you don’t need to choose either/or.
Why is this just a zimbo thing?
In other countries and sports (US college sport aside) you don’t see players drop out of squads to go do uni.
When’s the last time you heard a Pakistani or Bangladeshi do that?
I’ve lost count of over the years how many feel good low key media stories there has been of various NRL players (average salary 400k a year before rep payments) do some sort of trade or uni study during the week.
Athletes have a fair amount of downtime. This is especially true for Zim cricket.
An average degree is 3 or 4 years.
Study load per week is meant to be around 10 hours, but let’s face it most people wouldn’t do more than 5.
A part time degree will halve the study load and double the length of time taken.
So are you trying to tell me these ambitious young cricketers who don’t want to sell crack after their career is done can’t train hard, play hard, and set aside 2/3 hours a week for study?
Why can other sports and countries do it but not our guys?
I remember there was one bulldogs NRL player called Corey Payne who retired at 30 after learning three languages and getting a doctorate of some shit and was a CEO by 34.
Alot of people looked at that with interest because Rugby league players are known for their dopiness! and a professional NRL team has a lot more workload, physical needs and eyes on them than a Zim cricketer.
All this is even more applicable in the Covid world.
The county idea you suggested is Not the worst idea in theory, but it’s not just county these guys play. There’s guys in Australia,SA and Nz too.
I’d push myself to have ZC and other tier two countries exempt from international caps in the first class systems such as England.
Reserve the international spots for world class cricketers and if you are from a test nation ranked below 11, and good enough for county, be treated like a local. Of course, the catch for the county side would be disruptions of their squad when such players are on national duty, but there wouldn’t be a hell of a lot of players that would be doing it, but for those that do, everyone wins.