Mathew shonken

[Googly]

A part of that is wanting to continue studying whilst you're "in the mode" and potentially going with a group of friends.

People will also be more inclined to pursue cricket if the team is doing well and the team is actually harder to get into, the opposite of what one might think.

Nobody is in a hurry to play franchise at $300 a month for 4 months of the year either. Old ground, but ZC have this captive player pool of franchise players that at best will earn about $1500 for the top half dozen (but that's probably still only for 4 months) and the rest are way below that. They're not going to change and players will continue to look for better alternatives. The best players, with options, will give it a 2 year go at most to crack a central contract. The majority of these centrally contracted guys will probably be on 3k a month. It will mostly be performance based so getting off the bottom rung will be almost impossible.

I didn't know Myers was offered a central contract. Ya that was a blunder on his part, in my opinion. Also he comes from a well to do family so has more options than most.

Being awarded the opportunity to host I find astonishing. We have not done a convincing job of it before. Existing facilities were given a lick of cheap paint and I know we were given a lot of money. This time around it's going to be a really significant chunk for upgrades. Anyway we know how thats going to roll out. The upside is that ICC want us to improve and they're giving us a lot of opportunities and ZC are likely to squander them.

[ZIMDOGGY]

Why is it always
1. Go to England uni
2. At a course that demands you be present and not remote.

It’s getting boring. Show creativity! Change it up.

It’s also incredibly easy to study remotely or semi remotely. All other athletes do it. Why can’t zimbos?

Or....just wait a couple of years?

If it was me I'd give cricket a go for a couple of seasons. You never know, you could find yourself playing a Test match or a world cup if you do particularly well. If not, and if cricket doesn't work out, then you can still go and start uni at like aged 22 or 23 or something - you aren't exactly ancient at that point. It's pretty normal for Brits to take a year or two out and go to uni later anyway.

For example Myers who was in the national team already, why wouldn't he jut give cricket a chance for a while? They offered him a national team contract and he turned it down to go and study Agriculture at some minor UK university with no cricketing setup. Bizarre.

Exactly. International Cricket opens doors too. Rainy is in Bangladesh now and I guarantee whatever he is doing there is because of connections made during cricket and becoming famous. Myers won’t be famous outside this forum unless he ruins soon. Murray 2.0

If it were me. I’d give cricket a red hot go and study in my spare time (of which there is a lot).
The degree will take years but it’ll be a side gig ready to go once you give up cricket.

I can understand why some players give it up who will never be stars but we are seeing real talents fizzle out.

Also look at Raza. Ten years ago everyone thought he would be a depth player at best, now he is ICC player of the year just about. And is on the trajectory of a lucrative IPL payday.
Imagine if he had just gone to England to ‘study’.

[secretzimbo]

Raza did go to uni in the UK tbf. He actually credits his time playing friendly cricket as a student in Scotland as reigniting his love for the game and motivating him to take it up professionally in Zim. An unusual case though!

[Zimco]

Also look at Raza. Ten years ago everyone thought he would be a depth player at best, now he is ICC player of the year just about. And is on the trajectory of a lucrative IPL payday.
Imagine if he had just gone to England to ‘study’.
[/quote]

Raza did go to Scotland to study. Thats where he found out he was good at cricket

[TapsC2]

Yes turning down a central contract is very strange. That's the hard part. I am also 100% sure he would have been a key player.

Let's just say for example they offered USD2000 a month. Add match fees plus the tournament prize money for the World Cup he would have made a fair bit. I think ODI match fees are about 1k and T20 match fees are about USD500.. if my calculations are correct they are going split about 200k for the World Cup.

Missed opportunity. They even gave him a game when he came back having played 0 cricket. Something tells me parent played a huge role here and its difficult to blame them when you are living in a collapsing country but if your kid has been offered that kind of opportunity surely you can give them at least 18 months to try it.

[TapsC2]

I also feel like 10 to 15 years ago you could take a 4 year break but now so much goes into the game that it will be very difficult to catch up and fulfill your potential.

[ZIMDOGGY]

Raza did go to uni in the UK tbf. He actually credits his time playing friendly cricket as a student in Scotland as reigniting his love for the game and motivating him to take it up professionally in Zim. An unusual case though!

I was worried someone will mention this. My fault for using him as an example but his circumstances were different. He’s basically an immigrant to Zim.
Taibu, Price, Burl are better examples.

[zimbos_05]

I thin many have just seen the uncertainty that ZC has offered recently. There are periods where things go great, and then all of a sudden, we're suspended.

Then things get back up again and suddenly you go a month without being paid.

Easy now to say that they could have gone to a World Cup and all, but that wasn't really guaranteed a few months ago. Had Rajput stayed in charge, we would most likely would not have made it past Qualifier A.

Theres been periods in the past where things have gone well and promise was there, and then things went up shit creek. It's too uncertain to view Zim Cricket as highly valuable.

Hopefully now under Dave things do actually change, and you will end up with more players staying behind.