Trying to find info on Zimbabwean cricket history....

[ZIMDOGGY]

You make some good points - I agree that Ireland needs to set up a local league, even if their best players play for english counties.

Which leads me to my next point hypothetical question:

Would Zimbabwean cricket be better-off if we just sent all of our best players to play for South African teams and just focused on youth and club cricket back in Zimbabwe?
I don't think this would ever happen and it probably wouldn't be a healthy development but it raises an interesting scenario.

I see your hand, and I raise your bet....

What if we took this further, and integrated the Logan teams of Zimbabwe with the saffer league to create a larger "southern African" or " sub saharan cup" .

For this to work, a few points:
we would have to reduce the zim teams to three. Bye bye mountaineers And whoever else.....

These players get reallocated to the surviving teams and strengthen those squads.

I suspect these teams will still be weaker on average, therefore have 2 or 3 young saffers in the squads to bring them up to par. this will still allow 25 or so zimbos on show playing against strong Saf teams or equally string zim teams.

A typical match would therefore hypothetically be
Vipers v eagles
Cobras v tuskers
Namibia v blah blah


We clean the slate
And integrate
To facilitate
Zims
development rate......
And alleviate

[Boundary]

I like this thread! Ireland need to set up their own league, it's the basis of longetivity. I'm surprised about Argentina, but then again, they play rugby competently so it makes sense.
Zim used to have a smaller pool of players simply because cricket wasn't strong in schools - rugby, football, athletics, even basketball had better representation than cricket. But something changed in the 90s - kids watching Olonga, Streak, the Flowers etc. on TV mixing it up with the Tendulkars and McGraths of this world awoke to the possibilities. Zimbabwean schools rugby is very strong but they have no national league organisation for the kids after graduate from A-Level; cricket had a good league but no comparable kids' supply - until now. Lumping us with SA will be a step backwards. What we need to do is to strengthen club cricket.

[brmtaylor.com admin]

What if we took this further, and integrated the Logan teams of Zimbabwe with the saffer league to create a larger "southern African" or " sub saharan cup" .

For this to work, a few points:
we would have to reduce the zim teams to three. Bye bye mountaineers And whoever else.....

These players get reallocated to the surviving teams and strengthen those squads.

I suspect these teams will still be weaker on average, therefore have 2 or 3 young saffers in the squads to bring them up to par. this will still allow 25 or so zimbos on show playing against strong Saf teams or equally string zim teams.

A typical match would therefore hypothetically be
Vipers v eagles
Cobras v tuskers
Namibia v blah blah

If you're talking about a First Class competition, it wouldn't be very profitable I'd imagine. It's a nice idea in theory because it would benefit the Zimbabweans, Namibians and Kenyans but the South Africans wouldn't gain much in either a cricketing or a financial sense so it would never happen.

I think a Twenty20 league could work though and achieve many of the same objectives. The South African franchises would object because it makes their pathway to the Champions League a bit tougher, but honestly they'd be firm favourites in any African competition and would be for the foreseeable future so it's not really a huge problem. 2 teams from South Africa, 2 teams from Zimbabwe and throw in another couple of countries like Kenya and Namibia. It would only have to be a week long tournament, but it still gives many of the players the rare chance to play against better quality opposition. Even the South African teams could find it useful to play against players of the calibre of Price and Utseya. The top 2 teams progress to the Champions League.

[JHunter]

Couldn't see the South African clubs going for that, although I do recall a plan for a joint qualifying T20 tournament amongst South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. In it though South Africa were basically guaranteed club spots for the Champions League. Perhaps a revival of that Southern Hemisphere competition except this time it would include South Africa, Zimbabwe, Australia and New Zealand? South Africa and Zimbabwe could form the western group (with the 6 teams from South Africa, 5 teams from Zimbabwe and a guest team such as Namibia which would not be eligible to go to the Champions League (Namibia not being a domestic team but a national team)) and Australia (6 teams) and New Zealand (6 teams) forming the eastern group. Top 4 teams from each group compete in the quarterfinals with the 4 semifinalists (except the guest team) qualifying for the Champions League? With that format teams from Australia and South Africa would have to play pretty badly not to get a spot and I would expect that Zimbabwean and New Zealander teams would most likely qualify more often than not.

As for a Southern Africa first-class competition, why not use the SAA Provincial 3-day competition as a basis? South Africa would never eliminate their SuperSport Series or place yet another first-class competition above it (and unlike India with its Duleep, Ranji and Irani Trophies I can't see South Africa supporting 3 first-class competitions). Namibia already play in the SAA Provincial 3-day competition. Zimbabwe already sent a team in the past if I remember rightly. With 14 teams (including Namibia) it is already a big competition. One option would be to include a Zimbabwe XI and Kenya (to get 16 teams) or to help spread the concept of domestic first-class cricket they could have Namibia send two teams (Namibia Northerns and Namibia Southerns or something like that - which would then hopefully begin playing each other at home), send 5 Zimbabwean teams (using the old names of Manicaland, Masvingo, etc) to get 20 teams and then include up to 4 teams from East Africa. These East African teams could be done in 2 combinations: (1) two subnational Kenyan teams, Uganda and Tanzania or (2) three subnational Kenyan teams and a combined Uganda-Tanzania team. The aim with these East African combinations would to be jumpstart local domestic first-class teams ahead of the expected East African Federation (when one might expect Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania to unite in cricket as well as a reborn East Africa team). With 24 teams they could then divide the competition into 4 groups of 6 with the top team in each group qualifying for the semi-finals. Naturally though Zimbabwe, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Namibia would have to contribute to the organization and funding of the competition in someway (maybe by finding sponsors that wouldn't conflict with the South African Airways sponsor).