#ZCBOARD MUST GO

[jimmylesaint]

I agree it would be more likely around 10k.
The bottom line is the cultural aspect- cricket is not popular. its a means to an end for failed footballers inZim. the enthusiasm of the zim players in football warmup far outstrips the cricket playing.
In west indies you have natural strong athletes that are superior to most in short powerful actions.(they can't touch them Kenyans!) Thus they succeed because skill can be taught.

[Zimco]

Yes West Indians are bigger than Zimbabweans. But there are some big boys in South Africa and Zimbabwe. The Zulu and Ndebele are very strong eg Rabada, Ngidi. So there is really no excuse there. It is more the socio economic problems as cricket is expensive and the lack of desire compared to football.

[Googly]

I’m telling you that in Myers and Muyeye we have two exceptionally talented young men, especially Muyeye, this guy can really play. They’ll put an end to this black bowlers and white batsmen thing pronto. They have to get Muyeye back here whatever it takes and they have to make sure Myers doesn’t leave. This attitude ZC have had of just watching talent jump on a plane with a f%# you we don’t need you anyway has to end. You don’t pick an ok player and put him in the nets twice a week and get a Muyeye, these kinds of players don’t come along too often, even in a big country like England or Australia, never mind here. You won’t see another youngster with ability like this for a long long time in Zim.

[Googly]

We don’t have quick bowlers here because they’re not encouraged to bowl quick at school. I see tremendous young black athletes ambling in and bowling at three quarter pace because they’re scared to spray it. Just bowl quick in 3 or 4 over bursts. The control will come later.
Or they’re mismanaged in the nets and know they have to bowl 20 overs so they hold back.

[Googly]

I’ll guarantee that amongst West Indian kids it’s a macho thing to be the quickest on the block. That doesn’t seem to exist here anymore. In my day we had some scary guys at school. Podmore, Vickery, Tom, Dismore and Brandes were the main ones. Podmore was the quickest, and bloody scary because he used to spray it and then you’d get an unexpected one on the money, not that I’m suggesting that’s a good method

[Googly]

That was why I rated Matigimu, he liked scaring batters, one of the few I’ve seen in recent times. I haven’t seen him bowl for a while now, I had heard he was practicing with the Titans squad. If he’s any good now they’ll pick him up though. Someone needs to get down there and see if he’s worth getting back here. There will be about 50 guys volunteering for that job as well.

[Googly]

Jimmy- too true about that football warm-up observation. It’s the same in England though, those Poms actually become briefly animated without beer. I’ve seen quadruple the injuries in pre-cricket soccer warm-ups than in cricket games. I watched the Surrey ones warming up last season, you should see that youngster Ollie Pope play soccer, he’s unbelievable. Someone said that he actually had a choice of either sport, you’d have to wonder why he’d go for cricket at 4K a month vs soccer at 40k a week. I’m looking forward to watching him back from injury, he’s an excellent player.
I see Byrom didn’t get a start in Ones, which was a bit unfair, they’ve persevered with Banton (18), who’s definitely more a white ball player.

[zimbos_05]

The reason they are using colonial built items further proves the point of their acceptance of mediocrity. They have never thought to invest in developing that infrastructure. Look at how much infrastructure they destroy. It's like the Uni riots in SA. Burn down the classrooms and destroy the infrastructure, then demand free education. There is no sense in the actions and their is no forward thought. It's all about me, rather than us.

Cricket can still thrive in Zimbabwe even with a small white population. Many outside of Zim still care fondly for Zim cricket and hold highly a lot of the structure that was set up in the country. We offer a great place for teams to also train in good conditions, whilst enjoying proper relaxing pre-season conditions. There is a reason that many still ponder the opportunity to either come and coach or play when offered to.

All of these hypotheticals come down to one thing, administration. With a proper board and administration you eliminate a lot of the issues. Players will also be able to consider a career with Zim cricket as opposed to wanting to run away.

[Googly]

I think the first thing to accept is that we’re at mid Associate level and be extremely grateful that we still (hopefully) have full member status, but that may change in the next couple of weeks. We’ve got to stop thinking that a few tweaks will get us at the Sri Lanka, Bangladesh level, we’ve been left way behind. It’s a big assumption but let’s assume we are dangled a lifeline, the first goal is to be beating Ireland, Netherlands and Scotland more often than not. This is no easy task as we’ve seen. They all have some good players and have improved immensely. I think we’ve gone a step backwards and they’ve all gone two steps forwards. Someone has to be top of the associates and bottom of the members and that must be us. ICC will keep us going if we achieve this. We keep saying well we have the players and we should be doing this easy, but we’re not. The standard of our play has been well and truly exposed. When more than half the team fire it’s easily achievable, but that doesn’t happen often and we need to figure out how to get some consistency.

[Googly]

Whats interesting is what will be team morale if the change sticks. Team mojo is everything and probably played a part in our poor performances. Whatever divisions there may have been, not only in the national side, but also amongst the franchise guys, will come out if they know there’s a new sheriff.