Starting this topic now that we are 3 weeks away. Fixtures are out. Typical we face the toughest sides first up, Namibia game 1 and then Uganda game 2.
Vs Namibia 22nd November
Vs Uganda 23rd November
Vs Tanzania 24th November
Vs Rwanda 27th November
Vs Nigeria 28th November
Vs Kenya 30th November
Should start seeing some squads come through over next couple of weeks, and then our squad an hour before first game....
2023 ICC Men's T20 World Cup Africa Qualifier Regional Final
Re: 2023 ICC Men's T20 World Cup Africa Qualifier Regional Final
An hour before is optimistic.
Naqvi has 3 weeks to stump up the dollar and get his passport or we aren’t qualifying.
Naqvi has 3 weeks to stump up the dollar and get his passport or we aren’t qualifying.
Re: 2023 ICC Men's T20 World Cup Africa Qualifier Regional Final
Just realised there is a new policy saying "friendly investors" can now be granted citizenship. So it actually is possible. No clear guidelines yet but citizenship by investment is possible.
Re: 2023 ICC Men's T20 World Cup Africa Qualifier Regional Final
I believe there's also a program available to the Chinese where they bring in workers (essentially convicts) that can qualify for citizenship within 3 years as well. I stand to be corrected on this.
It is a 10 year naturalisation period, perhaps the longest in the world. I guess with all the people clamouring to get in here it's necessary.
Actually in the early days there were hundreds of thousands of people trying to get here, so that ten year thing may have been Rhodesian legislation that carried forward.
Zanu learnt and perfected some nasty tricks from the Rhodies.
I was trying to ascertain how many people played cricket in Namibia. I think a lot of the white kids go to boarding school in SA, where of course the standard of school cricket is very good. If you take the overall number of people that played a good level of cricket at school I'll guarantee it exceeds the annual number of school leavers that finish school at the 6 cricket schools here. Of that number most of our boys then go overseas. There are literally about 5 cricketers a year here that come from the known cricket schools that stay in country and pretty much none of them pick up a bat again.
The high density school leavers have generally played a much lower standard and if they decide to continue with cricket they have a very steep learning curve to get through to even play Div 2 club cricket. Some bizarrely manage, showing the natural ability that's around.
It is a 10 year naturalisation period, perhaps the longest in the world. I guess with all the people clamouring to get in here it's necessary.
Actually in the early days there were hundreds of thousands of people trying to get here, so that ten year thing may have been Rhodesian legislation that carried forward.
Zanu learnt and perfected some nasty tricks from the Rhodies.
I was trying to ascertain how many people played cricket in Namibia. I think a lot of the white kids go to boarding school in SA, where of course the standard of school cricket is very good. If you take the overall number of people that played a good level of cricket at school I'll guarantee it exceeds the annual number of school leavers that finish school at the 6 cricket schools here. Of that number most of our boys then go overseas. There are literally about 5 cricketers a year here that come from the known cricket schools that stay in country and pretty much none of them pick up a bat again.
The high density school leavers have generally played a much lower standard and if they decide to continue with cricket they have a very steep learning curve to get through to even play Div 2 club cricket. Some bizarrely manage, showing the natural ability that's around.
Re: 2023 ICC Men's T20 World Cup Africa Qualifier Regional Final
I know it's old ground, but what made our cricket good was the number of school leavers that played good cricket that immediately joined a club, and stayed in-country and got a job. I think that's the Namibian model. Their club cricket of maybe half a dozen clubs is likely to be a lot stronger than ours.
That dynamic has changed here and most actually leave the country immediately to uni or just to travel and get a job overseas. The few that remain start drinking and fishing. The cricket culture amongst the whites is all but dead. ZC didn't totally expect all the whites to give up cricket almost overnight, but then thought the blacks would pick up the baton immediately. It was a grave miscalculation.
They're starting to, but there was a void of 25 years that has clearly been problematic.
That dynamic has changed here and most actually leave the country immediately to uni or just to travel and get a job overseas. The few that remain start drinking and fishing. The cricket culture amongst the whites is all but dead. ZC didn't totally expect all the whites to give up cricket almost overnight, but then thought the blacks would pick up the baton immediately. It was a grave miscalculation.
They're starting to, but there was a void of 25 years that has clearly been problematic.
Re: 2023 ICC Men's T20 World Cup Africa Qualifier Regional Final
What's the injury situation with blessing? Do we think we will have our twin towers of ngarava and muzurabani operational by the qualifiers?
Re: 2023 ICC Men's T20 World Cup Africa Qualifier Regional Final
Googly wrote: ↑Thu Nov 02, 2023 6:02 amI know it's old ground, but what made our cricket good was the number of school leavers that played good cricket that immediately joined a club, and stayed in-country and got a job. I think that's the Namibian model. Their club cricket of maybe half a dozen clubs is likely to be a lot stronger than ours.
That dynamic has changed here and most actually leave the country immediately to uni or just to travel and get a job overseas. The few that remain start drinking and fishing. The cricket culture amongst the whites is all but dead. ZC didn't totally expect all the whites to give up cricket almost overnight, but then thought the blacks would pick up the baton immediately. It was a grave miscalculation.
They're starting to, but there was a void of 25 years that has clearly been problematic.
Can our problems right now also not be traced to producing a bad batch of u19s 3 tournaments in a row. I think 2010, 2012 and 2014 were bad. At the moment each batch has a few decent guys coming through.
An example of this is the SA u19 team Ngarava slaughtered in 2016. I think they finished 10th. The team had De Zorzi as captain, Mulder, Verryenne, Sipamla. Now by the world class standards of SA this is not that impressive of a batch of players. Imagine this happened 3 tournaments in a row.
Our team had the likes of Wes, Ngarava, Mashinge and Mavuta plus Murray and Matigimu.
Re: 2023 ICC Men's T20 World Cup Africa Qualifier Regional Final
It was around 2013/2014 that school cricket quality dramatically fell away. Prior to that there were a number of very good schoolboys. That I lay firmly on ZC's doorstep.
Even though club cricket was all but dead by then, there were still plenty of really good white kids enjoying cricket and vying for age group sides. When reality set in that they were competing for perhaps 2 or 3 spots max they realised the full futility of it. Plus ZC stopped touring to SA because somebody had stolen all the mula. The skullduggery I've witnessed is numbing. There's a long list of both black and white.
That coincided with a huge resurgence of water polo and schools cutting back dramatically on fixtures, particularly in the third term. Mostly because kids were cramming for vital exams with tutors because the quality of teaching has gone to hell. Kills me when these big schools proudly post their exam results yet 90% of their students were groomed for exams by tutors In my day you could fail O levels as many times as you liked. Guys stayed at school for an extra year or two if the school was going to tour
You'd leave when you had kids to support.
There was a time when white buy-in was vital for success and it didnt happen. Now the numbers are so few and the interest so little that that bird has long since flown. It's now up to the black folk to rebuild and they're currently not up to the task. Most of that is due to a broken economy and systems, which was also inherited mostly intact, by the way.
It's hard to find excuses, but people manage.
If they can't fix soccer, the national sport, cricket has no chance. First step is to own your failures. Nobody really wants to fix anything, merely profit from it.
Plus of course the number of competitive schools has plummeted from about 20 down to half a dozen.
In hindsight it was basically The Perfect Storm of destruction. Its decades to build something valuable and maybe 2 years to irretrievably mess it up.
It's not just cricket, it's every single sport in this country that has gone straight down the toilet through horrific mismanagement, wholesale theft and unmitigated racism under the ridiculous guise of misguided quota, spite, venom, call it what you like. Its nothing new of course, been going on from the get go, but the new bosses took it to another level.
Somewhere along the line kids have gotten soft with helicopter parents hovering around making sure their little darlings get shit they haven't earned or deserved as well. I'm talking not just the white community here either.
I once saw a young Prosper Utseya in a broken heap because he got denied a rightful spot in the u19 side. It puts shit on your liver for sure. The trick is to fix it rather than return the favor. Takes a good man to do that, and it's a commodity we are short of across the board.
My era of schoolboy rugby used to run England schools very close. Oh how the mighty have fallen.
It's possible to slowly do some limited damage control and repair through commitment, fairness and transparency, but we'd never get even half way to what we had before... in any sport!! I'm ye to see anyone make a genuine meaningful attempt, it's all window dressing with an eye on the main prize which is unfortunately money. What happened to administrators that worked for free for the love of the game?
Even though club cricket was all but dead by then, there were still plenty of really good white kids enjoying cricket and vying for age group sides. When reality set in that they were competing for perhaps 2 or 3 spots max they realised the full futility of it. Plus ZC stopped touring to SA because somebody had stolen all the mula. The skullduggery I've witnessed is numbing. There's a long list of both black and white.
That coincided with a huge resurgence of water polo and schools cutting back dramatically on fixtures, particularly in the third term. Mostly because kids were cramming for vital exams with tutors because the quality of teaching has gone to hell. Kills me when these big schools proudly post their exam results yet 90% of their students were groomed for exams by tutors
In my day you could fail O levels as many times as you liked. Guys stayed at school for an extra year or two if the school was going to tour You'd leave when you had kids to support.
There was a time when white buy-in was vital for success and it didnt happen. Now the numbers are so few and the interest so little that that bird has long since flown. It's now up to the black folk to rebuild and they're currently not up to the task. Most of that is due to a broken economy and systems, which was also inherited mostly intact, by the way.
It's hard to find excuses, but people manage.
If they can't fix soccer, the national sport, cricket has no chance. First step is to own your failures. Nobody really wants to fix anything, merely profit from it.
Plus of course the number of competitive schools has plummeted from about 20 down to half a dozen.
In hindsight it was basically The Perfect Storm of destruction. Its decades to build something valuable and maybe 2 years to irretrievably mess it up.
It's not just cricket, it's every single sport in this country that has gone straight down the toilet through horrific mismanagement, wholesale theft and unmitigated racism under the ridiculous guise of misguided quota, spite, venom, call it what you like. Its nothing new of course, been going on from the get go, but the new bosses took it to another level.
Somewhere along the line kids have gotten soft with helicopter parents hovering around making sure their little darlings get shit they haven't earned or deserved as well. I'm talking not just the white community here either.
I once saw a young Prosper Utseya in a broken heap because he got denied a rightful spot in the u19 side. It puts shit on your liver for sure. The trick is to fix it rather than return the favor. Takes a good man to do that, and it's a commodity we are short of across the board.
My era of schoolboy rugby used to run England schools very close. Oh how the mighty have fallen.
It's possible to slowly do some limited damage control and repair through commitment, fairness and transparency, but we'd never get even half way to what we had before... in any sport!! I'm ye to see anyone make a genuine meaningful attempt, it's all window dressing with an eye on the main prize which is unfortunately money. What happened to administrators that worked for free for the love of the game?
Re: 2023 ICC Men's T20 World Cup Africa Qualifier Regional Final
Looking forward to seeing Uganda in this comp. If they are at full strength they will be challenging Namibia for that 2nd position.
Their bowling attack is relatively decent. Juma Miyagi has pace and bounce. Cosmas Kyewuta swings it rounds corners. I have heard rumours though that he has moved to South Africa though, as he hasn't played for Uganda since the start of the year.
Frank Nsugba is a strange one, he just bowls wicket to wicket and is really hard to get away, despite being 10 years over retirement age.
Uganda's batting is a weak point, other than Ssessazi and Ali Shah, the others are average batsmen. Lutaaya is a decent young player but plays a lot of rash shots. Roger Mukasa is in form going into the qualifiers but he will struggle against any real pace.
Uganda's keeping options is their weakest point, they have big Freddie who can barely hold a bat and a young under 19 keeper who is only okay with the bat.
Their bowling attack is relatively decent. Juma Miyagi has pace and bounce. Cosmas Kyewuta swings it rounds corners. I have heard rumours though that he has moved to South Africa though, as he hasn't played for Uganda since the start of the year.
Frank Nsugba is a strange one, he just bowls wicket to wicket and is really hard to get away, despite being 10 years over retirement age.
Uganda's batting is a weak point, other than Ssessazi and Ali Shah, the others are average batsmen. Lutaaya is a decent young player but plays a lot of rash shots. Roger Mukasa is in form going into the qualifiers but he will struggle against any real pace.
Uganda's keeping options is their weakest point, they have big Freddie who can barely hold a bat and a young under 19 keeper who is only okay with the bat.
Re: 2023 ICC Men's T20 World Cup Africa Qualifier Regional Final
Do we pick wildcard Chivanga for the qualifiers.
I know this much there will be no in-between. He will either take chock loads of wickets or go for 55 in 4 overs.
I know this much there will be no in-between. He will either take chock loads of wickets or go for 55 in 4 overs.