2021 T20 World Cup

[sam_ahm]

Pakistan have looked like the team the beat in this tournament.

Probably favourites now. Surely helps when you've been playing cricket in the UAE for a decade.

[secretzimbo]

Associates and new full members are progressing and improving at a rate faster than Zim. In 4 years time, Namimbia, Scotland and Oman will be ahead of Zim in all short formats, Ireland are already ahead, Afghanistan are now already miles ahead challenging the big boys and winning big games. Zim is going in the wrong direction by not focusing on T20 cricket.

We'll be alright. Ireland aren't particularly 'ahead' of us - and their own problems domestically are even deeper than ours. They have almost no talent coming through at all, hence why they are so actively recruiting Saffers currently. They have even less money and more debt than ZC and their high performance facilities are just as bad. Their domestic cricket is of lower standard and frequency than ours even. I read a good article on their demise and problems last week but can't find it now. Will try and find as it's interesting.

If the associates were given similar opportunities and funding as us then ya, we'd be fucked. But sadly they aren't - they'll continue to struggle for fixtures against full members, their funding will continue to be squeezed etc etc. I wish it was different because I wish there were more than 10-12 teams playing at the top level. We are such a stupidly insular sport and I'm sure the ICC's big members will continue to conspire to keep the door as tightly closed as possible.

We'll keep getting our ridiculously unjust high level of funding and somehow keep our heads above water.

We should focus on T20 more, you're absolutely right. But try telling that to literally anyone involved in cricket here, including the players. They all want to play 4 day stuff. Very dated mindset. Of all the Test countries we probably value test cricket more than any other apart from England.

[Kriterion_BD]

Associates and new full members are progressing and improving at a rate faster than Zim. In 4 years time, Namimbia, Scotland and Oman will be ahead of Zim in all short formats, Ireland are already ahead, Afghanistan are now already miles ahead challenging the big boys and winning big games. Zim is going in the wrong direction by not focusing on T20 cricket.

We'll be alright. Ireland aren't particularly 'ahead' of us - and their own problems domestically are even deeper than ours. They have almost no talent coming through at all, hence why they are so actively recruiting Saffers currently. They have even less money and more debt than ZC and their high performance facilities are just as bad. Their domestic cricket is of lower standard and frequency than ours even. I read a good article on their demise and problems last week but can't find it now. Will try and find as it's interesting.

Partially agree here. Overall, Ireland aren't ahead, and may in fact be slightly behind Zimbabwe even after Taylor's retirement. Assuming each series is 2 Tests, 3 ODIs, and 3 T20Is. It would most likely be 1-1, 2-1 (Ireland), 1-2 (Zimbabwe) in Ireland but be 2-0 (Zimbabwe), 2-1 (Zimbabwe), 2-1 (Zimbabwe) in Zimbabwe. In ICC events, I think the matchup is pretty even, with Zimbabwe probably holding a slight edge based on most recent head to heads.

On the other hand, in terms of facilities and infrastructure, I would imagine Ireland to be further ahead mostly because its a first world country and the board is far less corrupt than ZC. They've got more international grounds (Dublin, Belfast, Bready, and could probably get one more certified in say Shannon) which means they'll have at least some degree infrastructure. I'm not sure how many domestic first class sides they have, but I would imagine the quality would around as high as the Logan Cup. Lets see how PJ Moor does. They do seem to be taking talent from South Africa, but most of their performers in recent times have been domestic talents.

Right at the moment, Zimbabwe have much stronger youth talent than Ireland, and its not even close to be honest. Stirling, O'brien, Porterfield don't have too many years left. But at the same time, Wesley/Myers/Shumba/Marumani have got to keep developing their games over the next 2-3 years, and that isn't guaranteed.

[secretzimbo]

On the other hand, in terms of facilities and infrastructure, I would imagine Ireland to be further ahead mostly because its a first world country and the board is far less corrupt than ZC. They've got more international grounds (Dublin, Belfast, Bready, and could probably get one more certified in say Shannon) which means they'll have at least some degree infrastructure. I'm not sure how many domestic first class sides they have, but I would imagine the quality would around as high as the Logan Cup. Lets see how PJ Moor does. They do seem to be taking talent from South Africa, but most of their performers in recent times have been domestic talents.

They built a new high performance centre with outdoor nets a few years ago with government money and apparently they are now almost unusable they are so poor. Their grounds are a bit of a state apparently this year due to money problems. Bready being an 'international' ground is like Takashinga being an international ground. They do get a lot less funding than ZC still, and of course everything costs more there - especially salaries. I doubt ZC ever even pay the HSC groundsmen for example

As for their domestic cricket. They only have three 'first class' teams - that play four matches a year but they haven't played a single red ball game since 2019 pre-pandemic due to funding issues. They have a 4th team that plays 50-over and T20 cricket but the fixtures are relatively few and the quality is objectively lower than Zimbabwe's - I've watched as much of their streams as I could earlier this year and honestly it's poor, especially the bowling. Some real trundlers and a few overweight village type guys plodding in and chucking a few overs.

Their club and village scene is obviously pretty strong and their grassroots. Thats where Zimbabwe are so shit. But at professional level Ireland are in a very bad state.

Yeah almost all of their performers now are domestic/home-grown at the moment. But their most recent 'Ireland Wolves' team ('A" team) had 6 unqualified overseas players who are due to qualify for Ireland in the next year or so. They've got almost no one coming through the home grown system, and the fact that they are having to buy Saffers or whomever sort of shows how bad the Irish system is currently.

Maybe we all have a tendency to presume because they are a developed country that all is rosy, but definitely not the case in Irish cricket at the moment.

I think Ireland would be the very very bottom of my worries!


*Also, we definitely have more official ICC grounds than Ireland. HSC, OH, Kwekwe, QSC and BAC are all currently ICC certified on the latest update, and Taka is certified for ICC womens as well.

[Kriterion_BD]

They built a new high performance centre with outdoor nets a few years ago with government money and apparently they are now almost unusable they are so poor. Their grounds are a bit of a state apparently this year due to money problems. Bready being an 'international' ground is like Takashinga being an international ground. They do get a lot less funding than ZC still, and of course everything costs more there - especially salaries. I doubt ZC ever even pay the HSC groundsmen for example

As for their domestic cricket. They only have three 'first class' teams - that play four matches a year but they haven't played a single red ball game since 2019 pre-pandemic due to funding issues. They have a 4th team that plays 50-over and T20 cricket but the fixtures are relatively few and the quality is objectively lower than Zimbabwe's - I've watched as much of their streams as I could earlier this year and honestly it's poor, especially the bowling. Some real trundlers and a few overweight village type guys plodding in and chucking a few overs.

Their club and village scene is obviously pretty strong and their grassroots. Thats where Zimbabwe are so shit. But at professional level Ireland are in a very bad state.

Yeah almost all of their performers now are domestic/home-grown at the moment. But their most recent 'Ireland Wolves' team ('A" team) had 6 unqualified overseas players who are due to qualify for Ireland in the next year or so. They've got almost no one coming through the home grown system, and the fact that they are having to buy Saffers or whomever sort of shows how bad the Irish system is currently.

Maybe we all have a tendency to presume because they are a developed country that all is rosy, but definitely not the case in Irish cricket at the moment.

I think Ireland would be the very very bottom of my worries!


*Also, we definitely have more official ICC grounds than Ireland. HSC, OH, Kwekwe, QSC and BAC are all currently ICC certified on the latest update, and Taka is certified for ICC womens as well.

With Jaybro practically retired from the forum, looksl ike you're my new forum sparring partner.

Their InterPros league isn't going to be of a high standard, but I can't imagine it being far lower than Logan Cup. PJ Moor struggled quite heavily in the league last summer. Moor may not be a first XI player for ZIM anymore, but he's still going to probably be in most people's top 15 or 20 I would imagine. And I'd imagine he has a pretty good shot at cracking the first XI in the Zim Test side just based on his past record.

Regardless, I do agree that Ireland have massive issues in terms of developing talent. At the moment though, their senior side is 90% Irish with just Campher I think being an import player (Simi Singh plied his trade domestically I believe and at his age, he's not got too many games in the tank anyways).

As far as grounds and infrastructure goes, even the average public park in the West has better outfield quality than a lot of Test match venues in places like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, or Zimbabwe. So even if OH or Kwekwe have official status, they are probably of inferior quality to public park in Dublin or Shannon. I can't imagine an Irish Academy being "unusable" just a few years after being built...do you have a source for that info? Seems hard to believe IMO.

[secretzimbo]

^ the high performance centre is in Abbotstown - poor condition briefly mentioned in this article;

https://cricketeurope.com/DATABASE/ARTI ... 1410.shtml

I saw tweets on the same issue several months ago. Sounds like they built the turf nets but ultimately needed relaying and they ran out of money and now they are sitting disused for the last year or two as they can't afford to fix it up.

ZC is honestly far richer, even after the looting, than Cricket Ireland. Their own CEO had to personally loan 100k euros to cricket Ireland a year or two back.

They've got a lot more clubs and players than us but they are going backwards at elite level in a number of areas with many problems. I don't think we should be too worried about the paddy's. When the 5-6 almost-qualified overseas become eligible next year that will give them a boost but I don't think thats very sustainable really, and I don't think they'll become world beaters in that environment either.

On the InterPros, honestly, I watched a fair bit and its very poor. Whilst in Zim our franchise sides often have 2 or 3 utterly useless players in each XI, I felt that more than half of the players in these Irish teams looked like amateurs. A smattering of quality, sure, but lots and lots and lots of crap village cricketers. The bowling, particularly. My god I saw some filth.

PJ was actually the 2nd highest run scorer in their T20 season. But was dreadful in the 50-over stuff. I'm not sure what this tell us though. Probably tells us more about PJ than it does Irish cricket? Idk. By all accounts PJ was on a bit of a jolly and certainly enjoyed the Irish hospitality this summer if you know what I mean It doesn't sound like he was taking it too seriously!

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Associates and new full members are progressing and improving at a rate faster than Zim. In 4 years time, Namimbia, Scotland and Oman will be ahead of Zim in all short formats, Ireland are already ahead, Afghanistan are now already miles ahead challenging the big boys and winning big games. Zim is going in the wrong direction by not focusing on T20 cricket.

Thats what i mentioned earlier.Domestic Four dayers are just a formality for Zim as they have no chance to be the team in test championship now or near future as ICC has least inteterest in putting lower ranked side in the championship. It will be better for Zim to put entire focus in shorter format as back to back ICC events are waiting to come. Zim should arrange more domestic T20s and one dayers to set up a team that qualifies directly for the main event. Biggest challenge for Zim is to keep their upcomming players to play for them.Previous under 19 batch had some serious talents inform of Marumani, Myers, Medhevere, some more talents are there from that batch who needs chance and get confidence through domestic matches.

Namibia has been the best associate in this T20WC followed by Scotland. Ireland & Netherland are a level below Zimbabwe. Oman surely could be the next asian subcontinent side to watch out for as they have now snatched the focus from Nepal and Hong Kong Cricket.

[Kriterion_BD]

ZC is honestly far richer, even after the looting, than Cricket Ireland. Their own CEO had to personally loan 100k euros to cricket Ireland a year or two back.

Its probably the incoming India tours every 4 years. One India series can set you up for 5 years, provided you don't play too many Tests.

On the InterPros, honestly, I watched a fair bit and its very poor. Whilst in Zim our franchise sides often have 2 or 3 utterly useless players in each XI, I felt that more than half of the players in these Irish teams looked like amateurs. A smattering of quality, sure, but lots and lots and lots of crap village cricketers. The bowling, particularly. My god I saw some filth.

That could go for the Logan Cup too though. Prince Mausvaure's phyisque doesn't scream professional athlete either. Tiripano or Chibabha or even Jongwe steaming looks fairly amateur as well.

Ireland certainly are in trouble. And as you've pointed out its both financial as well as cricketing related. Sad really since they did have a lot of passion for the game. They will need to unearth some more talent in the next few years from the U-19s like Zimbabwe did last year. Stirling and Balbirnie still have 4-5 years left and Tector seems to be a terrific find. Little and Young both have some pace. But they will need to find a couple more middle order batsmen to go with Tector and Campher.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Afghanistan should have bowled 1/2 overs from Najibullah and Naib when pressure was on.

[slcricfan1]

ZC is honestly far richer, even after the looting, than Cricket Ireland. Their own CEO had to personally loan 100k euros to cricket Ireland a year or two back.

Its probably the incoming India tours every 4 years. One India series can set you up for 5 years, provided you don't play too many Tests.

On the InterPros, honestly, I watched a fair bit and its very poor. Whilst in Zim our franchise sides often have 2 or 3 utterly useless players in each XI, I felt that more than half of the players in these Irish teams looked like amateurs. A smattering of quality, sure, but lots and lots and lots of crap village cricketers. The bowling, particularly. My god I saw some filth.

That could go for the Logan Cup too though. Prince Mausvaure's phyisque doesn't scream professional athlete either. Tiripano or Chibabha or even Jongwe steaming looks fairly amateur as well.

Ireland certainly are in trouble. And as you've pointed out its both financial as well as cricketing related. Sad really since they did have a lot of passion for the game. They will need to unearth some more talent in the next few years from the U-19s like Zimbabwe did last year. Stirling and Balbirnie still have 4-5 years left and Tector seems to be a terrific find. Little and Young both have some pace. But they will need to find a couple more middle order batsmen to go with Tector and Campher.

Little, Adair, Tector and Campher are the only real young talents they seem to have yeah. All 4 are pretty terrific finds imo. Young is a little bit older/ I think White was a decent spinner.