Zimbabwe vs Ireland | 3rd T20I | 10 December 2023

[jaybro]

Who in their right mind will replace Williams with Mazakadza? That is where the problem is, something is wrong here. They should have drafted Kaia or Shumba, it's a no brainer, but may be these are forced decisions, may be they just want Wellington to play. With the right team selection Zimbabwe can do better.

I think people are ver looking the fact that without Williams, Zimbabwe didn’t have a left arm spinner. The Irish batting lineup is made up of all right handers, so it made sense to want a left arm spinner.

[Kriterion_BD]

Honestly, its not possible or wise to make any judgements about cricketing abilty based on performances in T20 cricket. In that sense the results cannot be extrapolated to say anything more than Ireland beat ZIM 2-1. I am not saying the format is not important, however the true test of ability will come from Tests and less so the ODI series. The true gap between the sides - if there is any - will be seen during the ODI series.

I predict the ODI series will be 2-1, but do not know which side will win. They are very evenly matched sides, if both teams are at full strength.

[sam_ahm]

Who in their right mind will replace Williams with Mazakadza? That is where the problem is, something is wrong here. They should have drafted Kaia or Shumba, it's a no brainer, but may be these are forced decisions, may be they just want Wellington to play. With the right team selection Zimbabwe can do better.

I think people are ver looking the fact that without Williams, Zimbabwe didn’t have a left arm spinner. The Irish batting lineup is made up of all right handers, so it made sense to want a left arm spinner.

In that case the thinking should be to play a batter instead of some other bowler, Mavuta or Jongwe. Most likely Mavuta.

They went in with 6 batters yesterday. If which one was playing his first ever series and another was making a comeback after many months. Also playing so many bowlers just to make them bowl one over, or don't bowl them at all makes no sense. Bennett bowled 1 over for 4 runs and a wicket in 2nd T20I and hasn't bowled at all after that. Why? Because they have many bowlers and just want everyone to bowl 1 over. That's rubbish.

All this is just flawed thinking, a layman like me can understand it why can't they?

[TapsC2]

Honestly, its not possible or wise to make any judgements about cricketing abilty based on performances in T20 cricket. In that sense the results cannot be extrapolated to say anything more than Ireland beat ZIM 2-1. I am not saying the format is not important, however the true test of ability will come from Tests and less so the ODI series. The true gap between the sides - if there is any - will be seen during the ODI series.

I predict the ODI series will be 2-1, but do not know which side will win. They are very evenly matched sides, if both teams are at full strength.

Yes this is true. Zimbabwe also has more options with the bat without the big 3 in ODIs. For example Welch, Kaia and Gumbie can probably come in for Marumani, Wes and one of the bowlers. Raza if he is still around will play as well.

This is our reality. You can't run from it. It will be Raza plus the rest for a while. We need to work with that. Raza will miss some series for the IPL for example. We have to try different combinations

[mnelson68]

You simply cannot go into any match at any level with only 5 recognised batsman and expect a winning result. Add to this the 2 leader batsman were unavailable which weakened the batting even more.You could forgive it if there were 2 or 3 genuine all rounders in the side but that's simply was not the case. There is not 1 good reason why you would go into this game deliberately playing a batsman short. 140 was a very good result given the Line up but it was never going to be enough and to have too many bowling options only complicates things. Really don't understand their logic

[jaybro]

Raza if he is still around will play as well.

Burl said Ervine & Raza would be back for the ODIs and Williams if he recovered.

[sam_ahm]

One big reason why teams like Namibia, Uganda, Nepal, Oman have been doing well is because of the non-stop fixtures they get against each other. The ODI League 2 is a brilliant competition through which these teams are almost always playing cricket, albeit against each other.

Teams like Zimbabwe on the other hand keep suffering on the fixtures front. Although in the last one year or so we've had good fixtures for Zimbabwe, but it's not always the case.

The more Zimbabwe play the better these players will get.