Postmortem (Weaknesses and competion)

[clikcspeed]

Zimbabwe 10/10.

[TheBradDevil]

Guys you are forgetting that Price got Nafees on 50 when he was looking very good. Who knwz if hed survived the day.... Craig is our best batsman, out of form, and i believe if he is groomed properly into the 5 position he can be our answer to Steve Waugh. Elton i wouldnt worry too much about his batting if the top order perform, however his bat must come off in the event of a collapse. His bowling was excellent, holding roll, crucial breakthroughs, though not a genuine right hand wicket taker, he troubles the lefties. Dont under-estimate our players perfomances for whatever reason. The key is to improve going forward especially the pace attack, which if moulded well could well rank alongside the England one, or at least SA. I bet we compete against Lakmal,Welegedara and Perera. We can only improve going forward, i hope we perform and live up to potential ..... The future is bright for us, godspeed to the boys! elegedara and Perera. We can only improve going forward, i hope we perform and live up to potential ..... The future is bright for us, godspeed to the boys!

[eugene]

Craig is our best batsman

Agreed.

[gargamel]

My only negative comment about our performance was bowler utilization and economy.We are blessed with one of the worlds top 5 spinners and you bowl him for less than 30 overs in the whole test unacceptable , my belief is that Razor is our spearhead and a pray that we dont get him to play in a Paul Harris mode of keep peeing things tight as many of the bloggers in this forum suggest. I say lets utilise Price he is our WMD if bowled more.

There is a time during the second Bang innings that i thought that they could have puled off a victory . Our captain setting fields that didn't suit the bowlers and the bowlers the knuckle heads that they are bowled to the opposite of the fields set by the captain.They were to many four balls from KJ and BV and Chigs that against a serious batting line up we would have been ripped to shreds.The openning par of bowlers lived up to their billing as being impact wicket takers but to me they could be costly wicket takers against the Pakis and Newzealand.

The positive about our return to tests and international cricket is the growing depth of our bowling and batting .In the quick department we have guys like Keagan Meth , Tony Ireland, Ian Nichoslon , Njabulo Ncube , Higgins , That Nigerain sounding kid all developing and pushing to be part of the attack so big up to Streak for making our attack competetive. Some how there appears to be no depth in our spinners, after Razor, Pro and Creamer who is there the only guys that come to mind are Brad Staddon and Timcn Maruma after that nothing . worried ?

[FlowerPower]

Craig is our best batsman

Agreed.

Lets not use the term "best" losely. I know its subjective...but how is he better than Brendan, Hami, Taibu even Vusi.I mean even before his dip in form I doubt he was our "best" player. Potential yes he has, important to us? yes being a lefttie ofcourse, but " best"...no. If you had said he is YOUR favourite player ...fine no one can argue with that it your choive but best is absolute and Im afraid inaccurate. PS I rate him highly but not that high.

[Boundary]

Back to the postmortem question. Bangladesh lost due to:
1. Lack of decent preparation
2. Underestimating Zim
3. Failing to apply themselves, grind out a draw as well as personnel and captaincy decisions.

Now, to all BD ZCFers out there, did the match outcome suggest the true level of Bangladesh Test cricket or did a mixture of the above serve to undermine the true capability of your team?

From a Zimbo perspective, what I'm trying to get at is: what is the value of this win? Our team was certainly more motivated, better prepared and had a lineup prepared to play Test cricket. I think the signal was laid out during the first hour on the first day by Vusi Sibanda: patience, leave out balls smartly, assess the wicket, block out confidently and attack when given a bad ball. That was a result the Logan Cup, the Intercontinental Cup experience, batting against SA & Aussie next gen attacks and most crucially watching the Australia 'A' top order in the four day game. Now all this the Bangladesh lacked and so we beat them. No doubt we'll need to step up against Pakistan - tighter bowling, better batting, even more aggressive captaincy. But my overall point is, how do we assess our true strength if our opponents were so unprepared and unwilling to play Test cricket? Hence, how do we know by how much do need to step up to meet proper Test opponents like Pakistan and NZ? Can we beat those two?

[brmtaylor.com admin]

There's really only a couple of things Zimbabwe could improve on from this Test match - overall I think it is the most disciplined performance the team has given in a long time.

1. Less boundary balls per over - some were too short and wide.
2. Avoid losing clusters of wickets - don't want a repeat of 2/304 to 370 all out too soon.

Regarding captaincy decisions - credit to Brendan Taylor, a lot of his calls paid off. There were a couple of times where he left a bowler on for one over extra and they actually got the breakthrough (ie. Vitori on day 5), or brought on Mpofu at the right time, etc. Field settings I thought were pretty good, generally quite attacking. And the biggest call of all, the early declaration - I doubt anyone on here would have agreed with that at the time, I definitely thought Zimbabwe should have batted on to a lead of about 420 or so. To be fair, 370 on the final day of a Test match - history says it won't be chased down too often. I think we were all erring on the conservative side because it would have been heartbreaking to have lost from that position. But as it turned out it was a good call, the game was wrapped up by lunch. A bold declaration, but it's hard to be too critical - he was man of the match and the winning captain.

[eugene]

Craig is our best batsman

Agreed.

Lets not use the term "best" losely. I know its subjective...but how is he better than Brendan, Hami, Taibu even Vusi.I mean even before his dip in form I doubt he was our "best" player. Potential yes he has, important to us? yes being a lefttie ofcourse, but " best"...no. If you had said he is YOUR favourite player ...fine no one can argue with that it your choive but best is absolute and Im afraid inaccurate. PS I rate him highly but not that high.

I am only joking. I think he can become our best batsmen but I realise at the moment there are others who are higher up the foodchain. I was just showing my support for him.