Where to from here?

[jaybro]

Listening to Dave’s press conference, this is what I took out of it

- Sounds like the end is close for him, he mentioned that when he 1st took the role “ears were open” and the players were listening to him. Now he said it’s a battle to get players enthusiastic and even punctual.

He mentioned the changing room needed “new voices” and also that it might be a good idea for him to move into a different department of ZC. I recall listening to an interview he did with Dean DuPlessis & these were the words or phrases he used when talking about why he quit as HC after the 1999 WC.

He did say he was still very passionate about ZC, so hopefully they can move him into a grass roots position, he’s just too valuable to be totally lost to ZC.

- He referred to the lack of depth or lack of runs for players in the domestic game. He said that a full strength Zimbabwe was still a strong team, but without the senior players the quality isn’t there.

He mentioned that the fact the next batch of players aren’t scoring hundreds for their franchises meant the expectation they could do so for Zimbabwe was too big a jump. Makes sense and something Taibu lamented back around 2017/18 that players need to be scoring 100s not 50s.

- He also lamented the selection process, he said he’d like to know earlier who was going on which tour so he could try to prepare the players. This is something we’ve all been frustrated about that we don’t know who’s in the squad until just before the first game. Sounds like the coach doesn’t get much more notice than us.

- He also said that the change room hasn’t gotten over the CWCQ loss to Scotland yet, and nor had he. It took ages for the team to get over the 2018 failure and it looks as though history is repeating itself once again.

He said they are a superior team to the other sides they played at the African qualifiers, but the morale and confidence in the change room is shot after the Scotland game.


Ultimately I think it’s clear Dave’s time is running out now as Head Coach, he knows it and I think he probably agrees with it. Who will be next coach I’m not sure, but a head coach of a national team can only do so much. By the time a player gets to international cricket, a coach can only influence or improve them so much.

A lot of people here are bemoaning team selections, sure some are puzzling but that’s cricket and I guess you’ll never please everyone. But the idea that things would or could be different just by better selections is a fallacy imo.

As Dave pointed out, there’s no one back in domestic cricket dominating and scoring 100s consistently. A young kid who’s score 1 or 2 half centuries isn’t going to be Virat Kohli. Bringing in some club cricketer from England or South Africa isn’t going to provide Zim with a Mitchell Starc.

Until they fix the grassroots game and play on better pitches nothing will ever change.

[TapsC2]

You take the core batters who bat around the big 3 and they don't have 10 List A centuries in total. Im talking about Wes, Shumba, Kaia, Burl, Gumbie, Marumani, K-Long, Kaia and Madande. I think Kaia has the most with 3. They don't know how to build a successful innings. It's not a surprise. Gimbie is probably the only one who has shown he has the patience for it. Kaia when in form delivered.

[TapsC2]

Its a tough fix. The only way I think we have a chance is to completely take the younger guys out the team and run a parallel international fixture list for them as an A team. People have forgotten how we withdrew from test cricket and basically grew for maybe 5 years. They weren't ready either contrary to popular belief.

You get Wes, Shumba, Madande, Marumani, Munyonga, Bennett, Welch Jr and maybe 2 of the best performers from this next u19 cycle. Get them specialist coaches, analysts and A games. They will improve. There is a good chance you will have to add Myers and Dane there in the next 12 months.

Let the likes of Kaia, Gumbie, Nick Welch, Campbell, Mavuta, K-Long, Kaitano, Mayavo etc take their spots in the national team. Spend big on maybe 1 more import. Let them play with the senior players for the next 2 years.

[Googly]

Moving DH into a grass roots position is a complete waste.
He probably needs to be a specialised batting coach for up and coming batters in an academy. That's what he tried to do years ago.
Actually another guy with real coaching skills is BT. I think it's time they buried the hatchet. I think his real beef was with HM. When will we hear whether he's moving up, sideways, down or out. There's no love lost between HM and quite a few others actually. Don't forget he was the Board's inside man for years employing divide and rule tactics. It's not rocket science that he now heads it up and his guys have been rewarded, old habits die hard.
Not everyone is pulling in the same direction here, especially if there's a perception that the ship is sinking.

When do we stop rewarding ex players, tired of cricket with zero enthusiasm with retirement jobs at ZC? If there's guilt involved or promises to fulfill its surely better to pay them a lot less with the stipulation that they cannot be within 1km of anything to do with cricket. The idea is to give back and not continue taking, maybe there's something lost in translation?

A guy with international experience as a batsman and coach doesn't want to be coaching guys with no ability, he wants someone with huge potential. Trying to teach an average guy can make you weep.

That punctuality thing you mentioned is proof of where we are at. That's a sackable offence in any other cricketing set up. Its disrespectful to the coaches and your fellow players and shows where you're at mentally. Nowhere basically.
The guys who think they can come late have another boss or they just don't give a shit.

[Kriterion_BD]

Yeah Houghton probably has to go...his early "successes" definitely look like a fluke now in hindsight. Who coaches next? There are actually quite a few lower profile coaches who could really do good work in a place like ZIM. In fact, high profile coaches - assuming any would even be interested - would actually be counter-productive for two reasons. First, a high profile coach like Andy Flower is probably over-rated anyways. Secondly, you can't coach a Madhevere or even a Williams the same way you'd coach a Root or Stokes, so it would be futile anyways. Two coaches who are currently working with Bangladesh I think could potentially be very good. There's Jamie Siddons who's working with the A team or some Academy type role and possibly as a batting specialist for the national team. He was instrumental in the rise of Tamim, Shakib, and Mushfiq back in 2008-2011 and in his current stint I think he helped Shanto go from being a frustrating player to a world class batsman and has helped Miraz become a bona fide all-rounder instead of a bowling-allrounder. There's also Stewart Law who I think is HC of the U-19 team, and Wasim Jaffer who is the batting specialist I believe. Of course the World Cup next month will be their big test, and should BD make it to the final four...the coaches performance will probably be solidified. I forget who our coach was in 2020 when we won...that guy could also be looked at. Richard McInnes is also a name worth investigating.

I am sure there many other coaches from many other teams who might be decent candidates and also realistic to get.

[secretzimbo]

Some great posts on this page above.


It baffles me that others on the forum or social media still think all will be fixed if we select some different average players from our domestic setup and everything will be fine

As explained by those above the problems are so much deeper

[sam_ahm]

Yeah, someone like Wasim Jaffer can make a very good coach, he has done wonders with the Ban U19 team and is not a high profile coach, but I don't think Jaffer would be interested in Zimbabwe role.

Ideally Zimbabwe would do well to target a local like Grant Flower, most good international coaches won't want to get into this mess, at the moment Zimbabwe are probably the least appealing of all major nations to target a head coach role for. It's a tough job to take. A local like Grant can yet take it for his love for ZC. Other options could be someone like Sunil Joshi ot Ajay Jadeja... Jadeja has done really good as batting coach for Afghanistan at the WC and Joshi has had successful bowling coach stints with Bangladesh.

[Googly]

The fact that players are not scoring hundreds in domestic is a huge issue. We've established that the standard is up and down, some good players and some passengers. Overseas guys give surprisingly good reviews but all acknowledge there are some average players gumming up the works.
Firstly it reflects on the coaching at that level. You've got guys scoring 40-70 but not kicking on.
Secondly it reflects on the players. I'm not sure where the blame should be most apportioned to.
Shitting on a guy for not kicking on is the general method for trying to extract a hundred out of the guy. Strangely it doesn't seem to work. The shit on method is ingrained. Those guys need to change their ways or find something else to do, which is unlikely as they're generally useless.

Here's a big issue- there are very few guys that are determined enough (or have the means) to put in the hours in the nets of meaningful practice how you intend to play.
The players are just not professional enough in their approach. In the national set up theres possibly an attitude of "I've arrived and can take my foot off the pedal a bit"
These mythical guys like Kallis and Klusener who pounded balls don't really exist in our neck of the woods.
We need a group of guys that think fuck it we can compete!

[Googly]

At the risk of incessantly repeating myself-
We are about to tour Sri Lanka, they haven't announced a squad, those that get selected should not be playing the next red ball fixture, they should be training and strategizing to limit the thrashing that awaits us if we go in cold.
Happened against Namibia but its faded into distant memory.
Are they waiting to see who gets a 50 next game?

Don't forget it was announced by ZC that DH was solely in charge of selection hence he should go, yet he hasn't gone and clearly not solely responsible or we'd have a squad in training by now. Our first tour against a serious side in a while and we're in tatters.
It doesn't make sense, we're repeating the mistakes and we are sinking daily. Did the Board get a 13th cheque this year for a job well done?

[ZIMDOGGY]

The fact that players are not scoring hundreds in domestic is a huge issue. We've established that the standard is up and down, some good players and some passengers. Overseas guys give surprisingly good reviews but all acknowledge there are some average players gumming up the works.
Firstly it reflects on the coaching at that level. You've got guys scoring 40-70 but not kicking on.
Secondly it reflects on the players. I'm not sure where the blame should be most apportioned to.
Shitting on a guy for not kicking on is the general method for trying to extract a hundred out of the guy. Strangely it doesn't seem to work. The shit on method is ingrained. Those guys need to change their ways or find something else to do, which is unlikely as they're generally useless.

Here's a big issue- there are very few guys that are determined enough (or have the means) to put in the hours in the nets of meaningful practice how you intend to play.
The players are just not professional enough in their approach. In the national set up theres possibly an attitude of "I've arrived and can take my foot off the pedal a bit"
These mythical guys like Kallis and Klusener who pounded balls don't really exist in our neck of the woods.
We need a group of guys that think fuck it we can compete!

We need to tighten the competition and the way for that is to revert to a 4 team comp.
That tightens and chips out 20% of the deadweight.
The real issue is t teams at full strength, it’s when you omit 14/15 guys on tour. You get some real dregs dragged up from the NPL.