"Pro's woes" ... the steady decline of Pro Utseya

[brmtaylor.com admin]

We must be willing to experiment with the leggies (for me, currently Mushangwe, Cremer, Mutombodzi, in that order) based on the pitch and conditions (which we rarely do).

I'm curious to see you pick Mushangwe before Cremer. I know Mushangwe is still quite fresh to ODIs and shows much promise, but he's only taken 1 wicket in 5 matches at an average of 210.00! Cremer's taken 53 wickets at a shade over 30. Only their economies are sort of similar (4.56 vs 4.69).

[Googly]

Cremer is the best by a distance, and he can bat... and ZC deserve to lose him because of the way he is continually treated.

[betterdays]

Cremer is the best by a distance.

if conviction was persuasive you'd've had me at 'Cremer'!! even preaching to the semi-converted (myself), I watched cremer get annihilated in the windies, while mutombodzi really showed poise for his age and experience

[jaybro]

@ ZIMLOVER not sure why you think I have something against him my proof is in the stats he doesn't keep the runs down anymore and he doesn't even take a wicket per match !!!! In ODI's he is no longer effective but still is perfectly suited to t20.

Im torn on who is better out of the 3 leggies cremer has a good ODI record but for some reason is not seen as a ODI player by the selectors ...... I like the 2 young leggies Mushangwe and Mutombodzi but they really need some exposure bowling to good players, Ideally these kids would go on a few A tours to gain some experience but since Zimbabwe dont send players on A tours we have no choice but to blood them in the ODI's. All three of these guys can also bat so they add some extra batting I especially like Tinotenda's batting but I have fear he will become "Disillusion" with his leggies and do a " Maruma " and start to focus on his batting too much and forget his bowling if he gets a couple of pastings early on in his career.

Now one reason for Pro's slow decline is that he bowls to alot of right handers and as a right arm off spinner he is more suited to bowling lefties which as some one stated he still bowls well to. This is why I think Zimbabwe should try to un earth a left arm finger spinner ( Should have just stuck with Pricey ). Since a high percentage of middle order players are right handers the importance of a left arm spinner is quite high, the way they get the ball to to curve into the right hander and straighten helps the bowler cramp the batsman up. They can really target off stump by pitching the ball just outside off, with a few variations they can get the ball to straighten or just go onto hit the stumps. There have been plenty of great ODI left arms spinners like Vettori, Razzak, Sakib and our own Ray Price who have been great at taking wickets and keeping the runs down. Now of course the spinner must be of International quality which there doesn't appear to be many of in Zimbabwe atm ( apart from pricey ) but if there is one around i reckon its worth trying to develop them .....

Is Brighton Mugochi still around ???

[zimlover]

[quote][/quote]@ ZIMLOVER not sure why you think I have something against him my proof is in the stats he doesn't keep the runs down anymore and he doesn't even take a wicket per match !!!! In ODI's he is no longer effective but still is perfectly suited to t20.

Well zimbabwe has been very poor in their fielding ,not to mention that Utseya took a lot of wickets when Taibu was the wicketkeeper Talyor and chikabva have not been very tidy hence a decline in his strike rates. Our fielding has been leaking runs due to the low moral in the team which was along racial lines. By standards Utseya i s far much useful and economical in any format. Not to mention even in the last game Talyor fumbled and could not effect a simple stumping .So we need a very good wicketkeeper for our slow spinner to be effective Taibu could communicate better with the leggies and hence deceive the opposition,thats why prosper was effective

[jaybro]

poor wicket keeping is one thing but poor fielding due to poor morale because of racial problems is quite a extrodinary excuse .....

Taylor definatly has to work on his keeping and yes Taibu would make a big difference to the team but I'm not sure he would make utseya a better bowler ....