I don't think it takes that long. Hamilton's kids could be good batsmen if Hamilton threw them lots of balls and they wanted to play cricket. This is a thing though, it is not as fashionable yet for black players to want to play cricket amongst their friends in Zim as play soccer or basketball for example whereas it was a primary sport for whites 10-20 years ago.CholeZimbo wrote: ↑Tue Apr 06, 2021 7:36 pmThe Windies A team that has had decent management over the years and from any only black pool of players has won world cups and has produced batsmen that have been in the top 5 quite a few times. How long does it take then to build a culture of batting, not for arguments sake, how long would it take Zim to produce a culture of batting in the black pool of players? and someone mentioned that is the reality we are faced with.
anyway bottom-line, what we generally all agree on is mismanagement at ZC and the state of country will always have many of us wondering what the actual makeup of the team would be now had there been proper and equal development from schoolboy level right up to the national since the 2004 walkout.
In the short term it is clear that we are headed for disaster in the next 4 years unless something drastic happens.
Backyard cricket helps development. So you need Hamilton's kids to be friends with Chakabva's kids or Taylor's kids and then you will have a 'culture of cricket'.
I don't see it happening on a large scale in that generation, more likely the kids of the generation of Wes and Shumba if Zim is still a ICC full member by then.
Diaspora players will be needed in the short term to cover the retirement of Taylor's generation. But I don't know if ZC will be proactive enough to recruitment them, possibly only when results look really bad, as good diaspora players wil cost money and there aren't that many available.