Zimbabwe vs scotland under 19s First plate match

[slcricfan1]

ZimCricket, by ZimCricket I mean Dave Houghton, must do everything possible to retain at least half of this team. Obviously cricket talent runs in families, so the Bennet brothers, the Welch brothers (where’s the older Welch these days?), that’s already 1/3 of a competitive team in 5 or so years time. Bawa, Saul and Mitchel haven’t really risen to the Occassion (a ton vs PNG is okay, but come on?), but they are young and can improve. Falao and Dube will benefit bowling with Blessing, I would’nt write Chirwa off, he can be coached to tweak his illegal action, Mararanyika and the slew of part-time spinners make for a highly promising team!!

Blessing, Ngaravaa,Falao and Dube means fast bowling should be solid for the next decade or so

[sam_ahm]

Zimbabwe will have to retain talent. There are no two ways about it. Otherwise we all are wasting time following the team, because they will remain like this or get worse in future, if the talent drain continues with no measures taken to stop it.

[Googly]

It's the franchise that needs to go from being a box ticking exercise to being much more competitive. .
Expecting an u19 to go from that level to international is almost impossible. They're trying it now, its going to have mediocre results.

[secretzimbo]

ZimCricket, by ZimCricket I mean Dave Houghton, must do everything possible to retain at least half of this team. Obviously cricket talent runs in families, so the Bennet brothers, the Welch brothers (where’s the older Welch these days?), that’s already 1/3 of a competitive team in 5 or so years time. Bawa, Saul and Mitchel haven’t really risen to the Occassion (a ton vs PNG is okay, but come on?), but they are young and can improve. Falao and Dube will benefit bowling with Blessing, I would’nt write Chirwa off, he can be coached to tweak his illegal action, Mararanyika and the slew of part-time spinners make for a highly promising team!!

It’s not Dave Houghton’s job though - he’s just a coach education manager.

Contracts and players are Hamilton’s role as Director of Cricket. So it’s up to him to offer contracts or to put things in place to retain young players and strengthen the system.

[secretzimbo]

It's the franchise that needs to go from being a box ticking exercise to being much more competitive

Apart from maybe attracting a few more Overseas, how can we go about making it much more competitive, in the short term, without spending too much money?

[TapsC2]

It's the franchise that needs to go from being a box ticking exercise to being much more competitive

Apart from maybe attracting a few more Overseas, how can we go about making it much more competitive, in the short term, without spending too much money?

They need to make the money available. Instead of hosting 2 token test matches a year we might be better off ditching that format and using that money to make sure domestic players earn a decent wage.

If they do go back to getting 9 million from the ICC then I actually think the money is there. Especially if they did clear the legacy debt like they say they did.

Let's put it this way. Let's say those domestic players are on $300 and that each team has 15 contracted players. That's 75 guys. $22500/ month. Almost how much they were paying their premium player. BT retiring can literally double the wages to $600. Put a maximum salary cap for admin to 5k and cut a test match which they claim costs 500k. Maybe cut 1 franchise to make them 4 and you can get players earning betweem $1500 and $2000. Competition for places gets stiff with that kind of money on offer. The quality increases.

That's all it takes. The money is there. We want a Matigimu, Welch or Murray to come home and be fine with playing just domestic cricket. It it possible. It needs leadership. The problem is $300 is probably the base salary for the majority of the population so they think its ok. Its not.

[secretzimbo]

It's the franchise that needs to go from being a box ticking exercise to being much more competitive

Apart from maybe attracting a few more Overseas, how can we go about making it much more competitive, in the short term, without spending too much money?

They need to make the money available. Instead of hosting 2 token test matches a year we might be better off ditching that format and using that money to make sure domestic players earn a decent wage.

If they do go back to getting 9 million from the ICC then I actually think the money is there. Especially if they did clear the legacy debt like they say they did.

Let's put it this way. Let's say those domestic players are on $300 and that each team has 15 contracted players. That's 75 guys. $22500/ month. Almost how much they were paying their premium player. BT retiring can literally double the wages to $600. Put a maximum salary cap for admin to 5k and cut a test match which they claim costs 500k. Maybe cut 1 franchise to make them 4 and you can get players earning betweem $1500 and $2000. Competition for places gets stiff with that kind of money on offer. The quality increases.

That's all it takes. The money is there. We want a Matigimu, Welch or Murray to come home and be fine with playing just domestic cricket. It it possible. It needs leadership. The problem is $300 is probably the base salary for the majority of the population so they think its ok. Its not.

Yeah they are receiving the full amount from the ICC again already.

The problem is that the franchises have way more than 15 contracted players. They have in some cases, e.g. Eagles, about 25 players on contracts, and yet a lot of them never play a match or play 1 or 2 matches per season. So that's quite a bit of wasted money.

Money obviously is an issue. Also interested to hear what non-monetary ideas people have for improving domestic quality. Around selections, pitches, formats, schedules, etc. Probably a whole separate thread really! I'll open a new thread

[Yvmnaidu]

we want to play more t20-t20 matches now a days.4 days of logancup matches not improve the batting skills. zim cricketers don't have hitting abilities & no quality bowlers.

[Tinah09]

ZimCricket, by ZimCricket I mean Dave Houghton, must do everything possible to retain at least half of this team. Obviously cricket talent runs in families, so the Bennet brothers, the Welch brothers (where’s the older Welch these days?), that’s already 1/3 of a competitive team in 5 or so years time. Bawa, Saul and Mitchel haven’t really risen to the Occassion (a ton vs PNG is okay, but come on?), but they are young and can improve. Falao and Dube will benefit bowling with Blessing, I would’nt write Chirwa off, he can be coached to tweak his illegal action, Mararanyika and the slew of part-time spinners make for a highly promising team!!

It’s not Dave Houghton’s job though - he’s just a coach education manager.

Contracts and players are Hamilton’s role as Director of Cricket. So it’s up to him to offer contracts or to put things in place to retain young players and strengthen the system.

Damn, does anyone believe that Hami has the persuasive skills and acumen to retain talent? I though Houghton vaguely defined role is to revive the sport across all levels, as well as use his contacts and credibility to attract touring teams, corporate sponsorship..you know, to make us respectable again. While Hamis job is to keep the political wolves at bay, receive ICC grants, hand a portion to Dave and get the fuck outta the way!!. I can guarantee you that Hami knows less about young Zim-eligible players in school, abroad than forumites like secretzimbo and googly

[Googly]

I certainly know more about the good young players than our talent scouts.