Rocks vs Rhinos

[Jemisi]

Exciting stuff from Vitori. Congrats to Cremer on 250 wickets. Glad Rocks offered some fight in the 2nd XI.

[hhm]

Vusi, Tinashe is no Bracewell, Cheema, Shafiul Islam or those quick pretenders you faced in Grade Cricket! You should be happy Rainsford is on your side too!

Now go and feast on Marto, Doug & Bennet! The Logan Cup is no place for taking it easy as a batsman!

Mpofu, Rainsford, Panyangara, Meth, Shingi, Jarvis, Vitori, Chinouya, Querl, Ncube, Nicholson, Chatara, Ncube, Tiripano, LTGM, Elton, Muzhange, Muzarabani, Garwe, Nathan Waller! WOW

[PSR]

Brian Vitori on fire

[FlowerPower]

More plausible ... I get the regional reason, but just like quotas it can be detrimental to the whole FC if Rocks is weak, ie we have a team in Masvingo just so that there is a side from there not because it's good enough,

what has been the long term effect of those 'detrimental' quotas? an ever improving FC system.

I kinda get what you're saying about taking them from school but i can't imagine a Franchise being interested in the 12th best 18 year old in the country or the 5th bext 18-y-o bowler. I think an elite academy of 18 year olds that get trained and give each of the Franchises a warm up game pre-season (like some varsity teams do in the UK) might be plausible when the system has some money ...

Quotas (in SA we have BEE or affirmative action) is a noble policy that unfortunately is fraught with loopholes and creates a sense of entitlement and unintentionally may lead to lowering of standards...note I appreciate it's purpose and hence the noble tag, but it is not a silver bullet. I was talking of quotas in general and extrapolating to FC...not that it was detrimental to our FC...as far as I know there are no quotas in our FC...this is spoken as someone not in the know(a quick look at Rocks, Mountaineers and Tuskers team lists will prove this) correct me if I am wrong.

....and remember it's not only the 12th best, it's also that year's graduands from the academy (minimum of 12elite cricketers) being pumped into the system.

Assuming I yield to the whole regional notion of serving a region with a Franchise, would you agree I have illustrated sufficiently that taking 12 18 years olds every year (churning out 12 elit 21 year olds every year end) would not cripple our FC and retaining the Rocks in the system is viable, why not have the Academy ( perhaps to give further concessions) excluding all 18 year olds contracted AND playing REGULARLY?

This could be a sixth team unofficially playing the team having a bye (eg currently they 'd play the Tuskers)....win win I say...very good 18-21 year olds getting opportunities to learn and play FC teams....a cursorily glance at the SA U19 shows a number of these kids have 3/4 FC matches under their belts...we are slowly approaching saturation point where there will be a glut of 22-30 year olds (who can play on for another 10 yrs) ....even more reason to harvest these fresh faces so that they are natured and given opportunity, and are also an investment for the future.


PS I still think my academy team would finish higher than the Rocks, inspire of the lack of maturity!

[FlowerPower]

Brian Vitori on fire

Can Vitori do a Chuck Norris....?

[FlowerPower]

Brian Vitori on fire

Can Vitori do a Chuck Norris....?

... spse not! ...

[foreignfield]

6 is an average of ONE per franchise...if our franchises are so weak that the loss of ONE teenager has such a profound effect then we are terrible! Besides that still leaves over 6 older players from the disbanded Rocks to plug the gaps.......)

I get your points, but I think you misread my meaning here. I did not mean that the loss of one young player to the Academy would weaken a franchise team, but I do think it's better for the development of that said teenager to play for his franchise.

As far as development is concerned, the franchises/provinces have an obligation to look after talent in their area, and to an extent I'm sure they already do this. Provincial age-group cricket is a case in point. Of course it needs to expand further.
Another example is Vitori, virtually unknown as an 18 year-old, he probably wouldn't even have known that there was an Academy to apply to, being stuck in the backwaters of Masvingo.

But I've got no problems with an Academy per se, if the money is available. You could even take in the contracted youngsters during the off-season ... so many ideas, so many ways to spend money that's missing everywhere

[ahashmi248]

Which type of classes!.................

[Boundary]

This could be a sixth team unofficially playing the team having a bye (eg currently they 'd play the Tuskers)

This idea I can get behind, but not yet. The top FC competitions in SA, NZ and Aus all have 6 sides. That seems to be an ideal number, taking to consideration the international fixture list and other stuff but I can't see how financially viable a 6th franchise is for us. Club cricket in Aus is highly competitive, the 3 day competition in SA is good enough to be granted FC status. If you look at our set up I think 5 regional franchises is ideal. What needs to be sorted is the level just below the Logan Cup. The metropolitan league in Bulawayo has 4 teams I think and I don't know anything about the clubs in Victoria Falls, Lupane or Plumtree. If each franchise can get proper sponsorships, they will be able to fund this infrastructure and the 18 year olds will then get some action and the most talented ones can be promoted quickly to the Logan Cup squads where they will learn the trade from seasoned pros.

[Jemisi]

Six teams is too many at the moment.