What is Zimbabwe Crickets ceiling?

[ZIMDOGGY]

*Twilight zone music*
Imagine a world, one taht is alternate to ours where tomorrow highly competent management is appointed.
People who are high IQ, love the game, know the game and make all the right decisions needed.
At least equal to any good admin in the world.

Where do you think we could be, or get too?

When I think about it, it wouldn’t be too much better in the short term given our player pool, but I think long term, we could unearth a hub of fast bowlers, and maybe a big three that becomes a big 6, with one or two X factor types

Also factor in everything. Such as the fact Zimbabwe as a country is a banana republic, the white population is 1/10th what it was 25 years ago etc

I’m thinking we could maybe get to 5 or 6, just behind NZ perhaps?

[ZIMDOGGY]

I also think of our big 6, we might unearth a genuine world class talent in that.

When I say world class, I mean someone above Taylor and Raza. As great as Raza has been I don’t consider him world class. As great as BT was on his day he fell short too.

The only two world class players we ever produced were flower and streak. Houghton came close.
Even Streak is debatable but I think it’s safer than not to put him in that bracket.

[Jemisi]

One really good batsman and one really good bowler can make a team.

Flower and Streak were what really made Zimbabwe competitive.

Crowe and Hadlee made NZ good enough to win in Australia even with little around them.

Ngarava and Blessing have shown that a bowler can turn up and suddenly be knocking over batsmen.

I think in a perfect Zimbabwean world with a couple of key players breaking out at the same time and supported by a decent keeper and spinner then 5 or 6 is probably right. The big 3 plus one of the others are always going to be ahead of the tiny resources available even if they were perfectly arranged

[ZIMDOGGY]

One really good batsman and one really good bowler can make a team.

Flower and Streak were what really made Zimbabwe competitive.

Crowe and Hadlee made NZ good enough to win in Australia even with little around them.

Ngarava and Blessing have shown that a bowler can turn up and suddenly be knocking over batsmen.

I think in a perfect Zimbabwean world with a couple of key players breaking out at the same time and supported by a decent keeper and spinner then 5 or 6 is probably right. The big 3 plus one of the others are always going to be ahead of the tiny resources available even if they were perfectly arranged

I kinda disagree.
Zimbabwe have only ever really been competitive around that 1999-2000 mark. That’s when we could beat everyone.
That team had Flower and Streak.
But it was also supported strongly by Murray Goodwin, Neil Johnson and Grant Flower.

Whittall and Campbell were there too and both had the odd match winning performance in them.

Strang was also there to support Streak in bowling too. Our bowling wasn’t flash then as a unit.

[eugene]

Paul Strang was pretty awesome as a bowler and often overlooked in the list of previous greats. I think Zimbabwe's ceiling is always hovering 7-10 territory.

[TapsC2]

Paul Strang was pretty awesome as a bowler and often overlooked in the list of previous greats. I think Zimbabwe's ceiling is always hovering 7-10 territory.

I agree with this, even with the most competent people it would take 20 years to get there because you have to produce a new generation from scratch then hope they don’t run away from the country’s economic problems. You would need competent people and a solid economy to produce and keep the likes of Muyeye then add a few imports.

Zimbabwe was only competitive when they had the world class all rounder and world class batsman plus 2 world class imports.

[TapsC2]

Raza has had a world class run but I wouldnt say he is world class overall. Consistency is a key factor when it comes to that. None of the big 4 overall ever had that for an extended period of time and that’s why as good as they are we have never really had a period where we dominated. Raza would have to do it until 2027

Another key factor of being world class is pitching up in key moments and we all know what’s happened over the last 5 years

[Googly]

Here's the problem. If you could employ a time machine and you transported that Flower era cricket team into today they'd be behind the drag curve. Cricket has moved forward.
We don't have a team that can match that old semi-pro team and it's a quarter of a century later. We've truly been left behind.

We've got some batters that could potentially step up with some really good coaching. We've got a couple of really good seamers, no real quality spinners, but certainly guys that can contain and have a good day. We're not dead yet.
BUT we need a good batting coach that can bring the best out of our fringe players. We've got some talented guys.
We actually have one guy who could make a difference but ZC would rather collapse our cricket than approach him.
There's the issue of them knowing they own our cricket as opposed to them being the custodians of our cricket.
If they believed the latter they'd have fallen on their swords a long time ago.

[Pat_Bee]

The ceiling is where we’re at now. Pushing lower rated full members like Sri Lanka in a few games but only getting over the line once

If all the stars aligned we might win a series like against Bangladesh last time they toured and Raza was on fire. Could probably take West Indies with similar astrological phenomena assisting us but that’s your lot.

Mediocrity and the odd big scalp is what we’re about and that’s just white ball. Red ball against anyone but Ireland, you better be getting your rain dance out.

[ZIMDOGGY]

Here's the problem. If you could employ a time machine and you transported that Flower era cricket team into today they'd be behind the drag curve. Cricket has moved forward.
We don't have a team that can match that old semi-pro team and it's a quarter of a century later. We've truly been left behind.

We've got some batters that could potentially step up with some really good coaching. We've got a couple of really good seamers, no real quality spinners, but certainly guys that can contain and have a good day. We're not dead yet.
BUT we need a good batting coach that can bring the best out of our fringe players. We've got some talented guys.
We actually have one guy who could make a difference but ZC would rather collapse our cricket than approach him.
There's the issue of them knowing they own our cricket as opposed to them being the custodians of our cricket.
If they believed the latter they'd have fallen on their swords a long time ago.

The technical coaching team is the most important thing to get right by far.
kirby is doing ok, but he is only really working with the top tier. Ngarava is his crowning achievement, Blessing is roughly the same as he was beforehand. Hopefully he does something with gwandu. I have only seen him once but I reckon theres something to work with there.
We need 5 other kirbys for franchise level and 5 batting equivalents plus a replacement for matsi.

Demote Matsi to age group level. He keeps a job and ZC move forward.

Everybody wins there.