Elton was telling everyone at the ground yesterday that half of the SA team is over age….
This over age thing redlines me. Its cheating, end of. Should be a life ban from cricket for the player, his team mates and coaching staff and that country should be suspended for 2 years, no more cricket. Only have to make one example.
Feels like a BS excuse though, doesn't it?
You would imagine that all this SA team will play in the WC.
It continues to cook my head how ZC think you can get a bunch of u19's, get them to net 4 days a week for a year or so under the keen eye of someone on a cell phone and think that a couple of great players are going to emerge.
Its 9 years too late. Unless you can find a 13 year old who's playing with 15/16 year olds and peeling off big scores or a 14/15 year old capable of playing men's club cricket you just dont have the raw material to begin with. If that same kid is not in the nets 3/4 times a week under a good coach up until he turns pro he's not going to develop either. You have to find the very best kids from about 10 years old and look after them well. Ideally that kid needs a parent that knows cricket and is actively involved.
If you ask any batter ranked in the top 50 their life story they will have the same one- they played up, they had a good coach, they made big scores as a kid, they hit balls 3/4 days a week, they had a dedicated parent, they were in a strong school system.
There's one lad in this u19 that ticks some (not all) boxes in this regard, and thats Nate Hlabangana and consequently he looks like the only one that can hold his own.
Once again- its why grass roots cricket is not going to succeed here. The closest you could get is to have thousands of pre-teens playing some form of cricket and talent scouts identifying the very best and getting them scholarships into high schools that had good facilities and played against at least a dozen other good schools. SA can still do that, but only just, ANC are very busy trying to copy Zim and obliterate their school systems, but its going to be tough because the top dozen or so schools there have massive endowments and are well protected. I think they'll manage, breaking shit beyond repair is easy and clearly enjoyable, and I'm guessing profitable in the short term.
To get kids to commit to that level of practice there has to be an upside for them. They need to see a pathway to a career and some money. The outlook here is grim. I'd say unsalvageable. We're down to sending our very best kids to SA and UK schools and hoping they come back, or hoping some really talented kid comes along and is willing to play club cricket and has a good coach, can access some half decent facilities and has some resources.
The problem is that the standard of our school cricket is so diabolical that if they've deliberately missed someone who does well, its absolutely no guarantee that he's any good.
The last reasonable standard of school cricket was probably in 2012. It has been downhill ever since.
First and foremost school cricket costs money and requires decent coaches and good admin, that alone puts it out of reach of most. Prince Edward and Churchill used to paper over the cracks of the failed government schools but theyre so far gone now. I guess Wise Owl is the alternative. I don't see the logic of ZC investing in an out of town school either.
In my day St John's had been around for quite a few years and we'd never even heard of it. They would not have featured against a decent government school's third or fourth team. Now the private schools can barely raise a second team. In rugby we regularly saw first teams of some schools having to play against Prince Edward and Churchill 4th teams because those schools were so strong. Prince Edward I think had 12 open rugby teams- boys 16 and over. England Schoolboys (their national side) would come here and struggle.