#ZCBOARD MUST GO

[Googly]

Assume the thieves have their way-
There’s absolutely no way that we are going to remain a full member much past three years, and even if we do hang onto that, we’re not going to keep being given 9 million a year no questions asked either. Let’s not kid ourselves, the way they glean money out of this under the radar is a disgrace. We probably need more than that and we’re going to end up with a lot less.
Tell me which players will leave if ZC get back in.
Tell me which players will enable us to beat associate sides, forget the other full member sides.
Tell me which players are coming through to strengthen our incredibly weak FC cricket.
In 3-4 years when we get downgraded or get given less money which players will still be around? We’ve got ageing FC players as well.
School cricket is all but finished, which of those boys are going to hang around trying to play professional cricket here on $200 a month? There will always be a pool of captive previously and currently disadvantaged kids that want and need to play subsistence village cricket but there’s not a player amongst them that will ever become the future stars we need. Anyone tells you different they’re lying. You can’t succeed within our structures, the proof is there because we haven’t produced any really exciting talents, well certainly none that we’ve been able to hang onto. And that’s a vital point, we have got some blindingly good players that these guys have waved goodbye to without a second glance. In a sea of mediocrity we’ve got three astonishingly good young batsmen attempting to make their way in a England.
I’ve watched about a dozen of Ed Byrom’s better innings this season and take poison on the fact that he will play for England within the next 4 years, he’s about as good a young batsman you will see anywhere in the world, it’s plain as day to anyone with a cricketing brain that he’s an incredible talent.
There will never be a proper A side program, places like the Campbell Academy will keep going for as long as he keeps making a good profit from it. Where are those players that graduate from there going to play? Brent is producing ok cricketers from mediocre ones, imagine he had a handful of good ones to begin with! On the face of it they look ok because they’re playing here, put them against a good side and it will quickly become apparent that there are levels and then there are levels.

If this ZC promise to improve things and anyone buys into that they’re incredibly naive and stupid, unfortunately it’s clear that there’s no shortage of those.
We need a fresh start right now. It would seem that at best there’s going to be a compromise to this Zimbabwean standoff and maybe we will have to settle for that, but it’s not good enough. All because people can’t see past today.

[Googly]

The people peddling the nonsense that there’s a group out there that would rather see cricket stop are using that to rally support for ZC. Sure there’s a couple, I’m certainly not one of them, but people have already surrendered and nearly all now would be over the moon just to be back where we were 3 weeks ago, they would see that as a major victory. That’s so chicken shit weak. These guys don’t care about cricket here, they care only for the incoming funds. Every single person knows that. They’ve had years to do right, believe me they’re not starting next week to put their house in order. If they survive this upheaval they will continue with even more impunity because they will have seen off the last serious challenge to their reign, and that’s exactly what it is.

[Zimco]

Googly, is the school system still producing any welsh’s, Byroms etc. are the 15 year old school crickets of the same standard (I assume not) of when Byrom etc was that age?

[Googly]

Metbank is seriously under the pump at the moment. When you have a thief like Chombo issuing public statements trying to distance himself from them then you know there’s a shakedown about to happen. It appears that they’ve washed literally hundreds of millions of dollars and some people are going to have some real pressure coming their way. They won’t go after everybody involved because there wouldn’t be many people left in the country, but there are going to be some scapegoats and there are going to be some trades, it’s how it works.
This may be very relevant in the coming days.

[Googly]

Bizarrely we’ve got a couple of 15-16 year old batters-
Myers is damned good, I really rate this boy. He could be somebody, I tell you. He’s ready for FC cricket right now.
Unless they provide him with a pathway he’s left with no choice but to try elsewhere. He can also bowl and he’s a sharp fielder.

[Googly]

Byrom at 15/16 showed real promise but didn’t deliver that often and usually batted too slowly so when he got a score it was rarely in a winning cause, but you could see that he was technically excellent and he did have a few outstanding innings. How he’s improved this season is beyond imagination. They dropped him from Somerset Firsts and he’s spent the season reinventing himself in seconds. That Two’s cricket is extremely tough, I don’t know the stats but he may have had one of the best seasons ever seen. He’s unbelievably good now. His contract is up for renewal and if I were him I’d drop Somerset and go to a smaller county on the guarantee that I played all formats. They will be queuing up to sign him. When he’s on a roll he makes batting look very very easy, he’s got more time on the ball than practically anyone in world cricket. That’s no exaggeration, he’s watching that cherry in slo-mo, it’s freakish.
Sibley dropped Surrey (big drama) because he wasn’t getting the opportunities he deserved and signed with warwickshire and promptly peeled off 8 tons in a row, breaking the all time county record, and still doesn’t get a test call up?? What else have you gotta do?

[Googly]

The drop in the standard of school first team cricket over the last 5 years has been soul destroying. That St Johns side that had Welch and Byrom in it was one of the best schoolboy sides I’ve seen in 40 years and there were a couple of other sides that weren’t far off them.
The decline you can’t entirely blame on ZC because they were just as shit then. The schoolboys just don’t seem interested anymore, there are less and less boys playin cricket, more and more playing water polo.
5 years ago there were dozens of fanatical parents, many with a cricketing background, all encouraging their boys and having extra coaching etc, many subsidizing age group tours etc, that’s no longer, we’re literally down to a handful.
I can tell you exactly in fact. The fanatical parents were the ones that used to play competitive club and provincial and national cricket here. They're all around that 45-50 mark so their kids have all grown up, so certainly amongst the whites that family cricketing culture is dead and gone and never coming back. Once you break that sequence it’s done for at least a generation. Sure you’ll always produce a few good kids but the overall standard is probably more important. A star in a small pool is nearly always a small fish in a big pond. So when you see boys (men) like Byrom, Muyeye and Welch doing well in a really competitive environment you know how good they really are.

[sloandog]

So, who clocked in this morning ?

[jimmylesaint]

I know exactly what is happening here. The game will once again be a minority sport in Zimbabwe. That's the end game.

And if you think I'm joking, Googly once wrote a whole post on this in which he opined about wanting cricekt in Zimbabwe to crash and burn. Boldly stating who would be able to afford the game. I never forgot that post, because it received plenty of support. A situation in which cricekt in Zimbabwe is like club/schools cricket - adminstered by "unpaid volunteers", played by those who can afford kit, boarding and flight tickets - is the end game. Sad!

I warned you sons of the soil many times over. You just wouldn't listen! Instead, you attached yourselves to causes that were designed to marginalise you.

Hahahah what a racist tit. Cricket will marginalise the poor only. As it does. to be a socialist/communist and allow all to have a go means ZC as they have done before bought millions of kit for the poor to play cricket......then sold the same kit to schools and cricketers

[encore]

So, who clocked in this morning ?

Co ask...