Matthew Bentley plans a career with Ireland

[ZIMDOGGY]

Its a weird one.

In england it seems you can get a paid gig in some very low amateur leagues.
in aussie sport- i know cases of players getting paid to play social park rugby union... thats no mean feat when you consider in australia, 90% of rugby supporters prefer rugby league. rugby league in sydney also has at least 3 paid senior comps as well as the junior age levels.

The reason for alot of this is sponsorship. local communities,businesses etc.

How can the national team not get the same sponsorship as a second tier comp? it astounds me.


I also have another, more controversial theory.

Zimbabwe are a dumb nation on the whole. Knuckledraggers.
Everywhere i see zimbabwean life i say gross incompetence. The journalism is either full of sh*t or badly written with no background checks. Sporting bodies are a mess. Government? enough said.

And has anyone here ever bothered to read the various ZC facebook groups? i hate to sound aloof but they cant put a sentence together. Double up posts consistently. Say ignorant stuff. Its mind numbing.

I know there are PLENTY of smart zimbabweans out there... all having the same frustrations we have. Alot of these guys grace our forums right here at zcf. All the regulars are quite clever. But it really seems like there is more than their fair share of simpletons in the country.

Am i wrong?

[eugene]

I agree about the facebook groups. Most of the comments are in unintelligible pigeon English with poor spelling and profanities. The news reporting is just terrible and most reporters and their articles would not pass a primary school writing exam.

[Googly]

Hehe, the smart guys usually stay below the radar. Doesn't say much for me. There is absolutely no journalistic integrity whatsoever, they are generally a mouthpiece for some skewed opinions from on high, they pander to public/gov opinion, one writes something controversial or truthful at one's peril.
The FB stuff is generally slang from youth that are not that well educated. No-one really follows much of it or posts comments as it's not worth getting into anything unpleasant. Standard of education is at an all time low. Basically only a dozen decent schools left countrywide. Gov school education is shocking, it's a joke. I never see any posts from kids or adults that I know so not hard to get the wrong impression. I've noticed that there is virtually no local input on this site anymore either.

[eugene]

I often wondered if ZC administrators would try and infiltrate this forum to spread their propaganda, but then I thought that it is unlikely that any of them would have know-how to operate a computer.

Although there was that fellow flash_g here very briefly who claimed everyone was paid on time and that everything at ZC was fine. He claimed to be a lawyer but I think he must have been a ZC person.

[Googly]

As a novice to cricket I really enjoy reading these threads of people who know much more about the sport and situation in Zimbabwe than I do.

Just curious if Zimbabwe could truly field their best squad, and I know even that is a fairly big debate point, which would include players like Ballance and Ervine, how good would the side really be compared to others in the test world?

It also seems to me that even if the political situation was improved there just isn't as much money to be made off of domestic cricket in Zim as compared to England and Australia.

We would be awesome. The truth is that the team would end up being predominantly white and that would never be allowed to happen. In 5 years time batters to choose from in no particular order (if all guys made themselves available) would be Taylor (?), Curran (18), Curran (15), Brundle (26), Berl (19), Lake (18), Welch (15), Curtis (15), Ballance (?), Byrom (16), Moore (19), Irvine (?). Completely spoilt for unbelievable batting talent. I can't think of a real quality black batter, and I'm trying hard. Hammy will be retired, not convinced about Vusi.
Ballance and Taylor we know, the other guys are youngsters with world class potential. We would actually be a deadly side. Makes me want to burst into tears actually.

[Googly]

I often wondered if ZC administrators would try and infiltrate this forum to spread their propaganda, but then I thought that it is unlikely that any of them would have know-how to operate a computer.

Although there was that fellow flash_g here very briefly who claimed everyone was paid on time and that everything at ZC was fine. He claimed to be a lawyer but I think he must have been a ZC person.

That hhm guy is really smart. He's definitely in the ZC (or was?). Weird to read his posts because if u were an outsider he's totally plausible and knowledgeable. What he says is what ZC does and easy to justify and he has many valid points. I found it frustrating reading his posts and it made me realize that we will never change anything. They believe in what they do, it just doesn't work.

[Googly]

I've heard Chingoka, Bvuti and a couple of others speak at functions, they are entirely plausible, disarming and charming and smart, which is how they have got to the top. Unfortunately I don't believe they have cricket at heart. I'm jaundiced but believe they would rather see cricket fail than see a predominantly white team or any white administrators. They naively thought that black cricketers were not being given the opportunities (in a few cases they weren't) and that there were enough good black guys to do national duty immediately and keep the flag flying. They were proven wrong and don't even see it or would never admit it. Their fight is black empowerment and not strong cricket. They think the whites have deliberately sabotaged them when in fact they have just voted with their feet. Now the plan is to rebuild from grass roots but the fact is there isn't the interest or the money to do this because its been misappropriated. We would have a strong team pretty soon if the guys were paid well and things were organized and players had confidence in a new administration and a new era of cricket, but as I said before, the fact is the team would be predominantly white and that would never happen. There's too much racial prejudice and mistrust on both sides. People make the right noises but it's just bullshit at the end of the day, so much has happened in this country, u need to have lived here a few decades to realize how deep it goes. The teenagers are better than us though, maybe we will see real change in 10 years or so, but by then Zim cricket will be a distant memory.

[Googly]

For sure there were infiltrators. The fact is they were unsure who was on the site. They have realized that there's no-one of consequence in the cricketing world posting or reading so they have stopped bothering.

[Jemisi]

@Zimdoggy, mostly it is an issue of education. If you've only made it through primary school or lower high school you are going to struggle. I found some of my old high school work the other week and it was utter crap. I thought I was smart and I can't imagine what led me to write such nonsense.

[eugene]

I often wondered if ZC administrators would try and infiltrate this forum to spread their propaganda, but then I thought that it is unlikely that any of them would have know-how to operate a computer.

Although there was that fellow flash_g here very briefly who claimed everyone was paid on time and that everything at ZC was fine. He claimed to be a lawyer but I think he must have been a ZC person.

That hhm guy is really smart. He's definitely in the ZC (or was?). Weird to read his posts because if u were an outsider he's totally plausible and knowledgeable. What he says is what ZC does and easy to justify and he has many valid points. I found it frustrating reading his posts and it made me realize that we will never change anything. They believe in what they do, it just doesn't work.

The confusing thing with hhm was his changing points of view. His posts when he first joined were quite reasonable, and he was calling for exiled players to return, like Colin de Grandhomme and Sean Ervine. His later posts however said they weren't welcome, needed, or any good anyway and that the team needed to be indigenized.