Zimbabwe U19 Tri-Series | July 25 - August 10 | 2025

[Googly]

I reckon these Bignaut boys are going to be really good.
I said it before, the Old Man was an unbelievably talented guy at most things. Genetics.
I saw the one lad having a go with the bowler as well .

[AussieZimFan]

Kian needs to get the confidence to get to the pitch of ball when facing spinners. Only wanted to play horizontal shots from the crease allowing the bowler to dictate the play which led to such a bad strike rate.

[Googly]

At u19 a lot of these teams have got players that have played fc cricket. We rarely find players with that ability. Plus theyre at school. I think the other countries probably have a long summer holiday where there's a 3 month gap for them to do that.
Both those Blignaut lads lack technique and a bit of thought process, which is odd because theyve got any in-house coach that could really tidy them up. Theyve got ability and good eye, but to be a top batter you need to be technically most of the way there by about 15/16.

Hlabangana looks really useful. Quite impressed with him.
I don't know what his academic plans are though. Thats where we go wrong. U can't make a living from cricket here unless youre on a central contract, and one of the top 5 at that.
A guy like him u stick straight into our HPC (but we don't have one) under a Dave Houghton and you give him 2k a month.

[Googly]

He's a SOGO lad. That will be giving ZC an eye twitch, all manner of ultimatums and threats coming his way

[Googly]

https://x.com/Melungwabi/status/1950191 ... f7dhA&s=19

This was interesting about Nate. Apparently he was at the Kirsten Academy and pitched up late for u19 camp, something along those lines..
Maybe Elton should pay the Kirsten Academy a visit and see how they run it and the coaches they have in their locker.

We have one proper batter here to pay attention to and they dont come along often and yet he's pissed on ZC's battery, and because he's trying to be as good as he can be. He firmly ticks the black batter box which is causing this incredible nastiness on social media. It's beyond nastiness actually. This black white thing is setting us back big time and Mawoza just keeps adding fuel to the fire.

[zimdan]

The best part is, our bowling made up of mainly Takashinga talent, are actually really good and there on merit.

No one, including me ever questions that, in fact intweet and point it out far too often.

We now have Nate, who accesses arguably far superior coaching at Rangers that he would get at Taka, but is clearly adversely impacted by that decision, missing the Ireland series on a bunch of lies and excuses from Mawoza thay were busted by someone in the know.

Its so blindingly obvious you have a priority pass to the national side if you suit up for Taka. Its cringe at best and they dont even try to hide it anymore.

Do you really think the Blignauts would be there if they werent Taka?

Do you really think BT walks into a new ZC player/coach role if he didnt commit to Taka? If he wanted Rangers he would be shown the door.

Its not even hard to.read between the lines now.

Its actually quite funny.

[Googly]

Having Frank as their "unofficial" spokesman and hatchet man just highlights the quandary we are in. The depth of feeling these guys have over this black white thing is astounding. I mean the way he/they are going at this current test batting line-up is beyond weird.

Well, its not quite that, what they're saying is- look they're not any better than black batters, which needs some unpacking.

Firstly its sheer glee and relief. How insecure do you have to be? What childhood trauma are we talking about?
Didn't take them long to turn on Bennett either.
There's not a batting line-up on the planet that is going to be comfortable against O'Rourke and Henry in any conditions, let alone these. This pitch is not easy and these guys are top drawer. As a seam attack theyre faster and more accurate than TK and Blessing and their batters struggled against ours when they bowled in the right areas.

So what the final decision here- if all our guys are likely to struggle do we revert to the black strugglers and not the white ones?
There's also been a bit of misdirection because the anti-ZC backlash has been over T20 selections, yet the focus is somehow now on the test side.
The fairly transparent intent of- look we'll give the white guys some slots in one format, but we'll reserve the other formats is a bit lame. With our small player pool the odds of us having guys that can face this type of bowling in one format and not the other is close to zero.
On a level playing field it boils down to who are the best guys we've got, but its an endless not so merry-go-round.

[secretzimbo]

All out for 89....