4th 20/20 International bangaldesh vs zimbabwe

[karthicks10]

For a country like Zimbabwe, where the resources are limited in terms of quality, pick the best 20 players whom you feel might be there for next two years and prepare a game plan and stick with them. Assign some role for the players and monitor their progress with a decent coach or high performance centre.

I agree with most of googly's comments.Zimbabwe has some talent but it's in planning they fail. If ervine and Williams have played today (irrespective of them being black or white ), even though Zimbabwe might not have won but on paper their squad would have matched the Bangladesh side and we could have even got a chance to win the match. On looking at this series , for each match there is change and players are unsure of what they need to do and their role is. Why did Bennet open today ? What was Bennett's role in this series ? Is he an opener or middle order batsman or lower order hitter ?

Like we saw in a previous post ,we have answer to most of our puzzle but answer is put at a wrong place. If there is a good coach and if administrators in Zimbabwe cricket really care for this game in Zimbabwe, we can certainly improve with the talent we have.

[TapsC2]

I think the question we have to ask ourselves is are those 2 huge salaries not better spent on keeping guys like Kaia, Myers and the Welch brothers around than spending it on Craig and Williams.

If we are serious about building a future team this is something we need to think about. For example what is a better scenario for us- give Kaia and Welch decent financial packages and an extend run in the squad or make Craig play until his body says enough is enough? It’s also not just about the money but game time as well.

There is also no guarantee that both Craig and Williams will make it to 2027. With the kind of luck we have had over the years with Ballance etc we can expect anything.

[sam_ahm]

SZ, Googly, with the emergence of Bennett and Campbell, the two obvious positives from this series, how do you see Ervine and Williams' future from here? Do you think they would want to stick around or call it a day? Or do you think it will be Burl who might get the axe?

As a T20 player Williams is a better player than both Bennett and Campbell and practically everyone else, never mind as an ODI player.
The guy is a gun when he's in form. What remains to be seen is how he'll react to new guys vying for spots. If he decides to take the challenge and get motivated he's my pick all day. Of course Campbell and Bennett are brand new. They'll surely improve as well.
Ervine as well is a good player. He knows the game has changed and he has to get going earlier, but he never had the chance this series. We'll see both of them in the NPL because they now know their days are numbered.
They'll likely knock it out the park and add to the confusion.
At the end of the day it's up to some useless and often compromised selectors so it could be out of their hands.
Theyre both going to have to play all the franchise games, NPL and club stuff if they don't want a muppet to sideline them.

The real problem is the guys in waiting are NOT going to get better in our domestic leagues. In fact they'll probably get worse. I've always maintained that we need someone with a great eye to say- here are your guys, stick with them.

Burl has to up his game. Has to get back to bowling good leggies. He's got some technical glitches with the bat which you can hide coming in and swinging from the get go.

Campbell has bought himself some time. If he'd gotten unlucky he'd have scored not much and he'd have been back on the carousel. He needs to get his bowling going because competition for spots is tight.
Bennett is going OK, but I don't think he's a top order batsman yet. He's a 5. He seems to have a great temperament though.

You could easily drop Madande, Wellie, Faraz, Marumani, Burl etc and replace them with others. It's not a Campbell/Bennett vs Ervine Williams thing at all. No batters there are secure.
I'll say it again, Madande is not top drawer and I don't see him getting much better. He's a good player but there are better options. We don't have a batsman who looks like he can confidently get more than 30 at the moment.

For me the competition is coming from Myers, Welch, the new Madhevere, perhaps Munyonga as batters and maybe in a year or so from Welch Jr. Don't discount BT either.
Evans will be back. If he gets his batting right he's better than Jongwe and Akram. If selectors got company vehicles it would make the right decisions a bit easier.
For Welch to get another look in he's going to have to finish top in the NPL and then get a hundred if he gets another shot. In a set up where we're crying for someone with potential the most obvious guy is getting overlooked.

What you might be overlooking here Googly is that age is catching up with Williams and Ervine. Willo is almost always injured and that doesn't help his cause. 2026 and 2027 are a long way away, and it is looking extremely unlikely that they will have time until then. On top of that the results aren't I'm Zimbabwe's favor, so something has to give here., time seems to be running out for senior players.

I don't know if N welch is scoring runs now but if he is, then that's great and he can be in the mix. Madhevere will probably be a direct swap for Marumani atm. M Welch surely will get into the mix at some point in time.

I do rate Madande, I think he is a far better WKB option than anyone else we've seen so far. He is well ahead of Gumbie.

Musikewa and Muzondo will have to do more than just bashing up Namibia B side to stake a claim, let's see if they start to push for a place in the side. Then there is Mavuta who will push Wellington, and always a chance Naqvi will get into contention if he is serious about it.

I think it could well be time for Zimbabwe to look realistically towards 2027 and build a young team along with Raza.

[sam_ahm]

. Delete

[Googly]

You don't know that for sure. There are such long periods between games that if either one of them has a quiet one some people will assume they're over the hill.
As I said both are going to have to now make more appearances in the domestic scene if they've got any sense.
Their places are no longer assured in T20. I doubt they'd stay on the same contract if they were no longer in the T20 set up. Most of our internationals are T20 and we barely play them locally It's truly bizarre.

I've been watching Raza carefully. Something's up there.
Not specifically with his cricket, although his purple patch has currently deserted him, but he doesn't look happy.
He said again that the team relies on him. He's got to stop saying that, you can't put that much pressure on yourself day in and day out, you'll crack.

I think there's a very good chance BT may reappear and as mentioned before that will put real pressure on either Williams or Ervine.
It's such a mess, we need some dramatic changes to coaching, admin and selections, not just going thru the motions as we've been doing for years. The Batonka Stadium is going to be our ultimate undoing.

[mnelson68]

When its all said and done , the selectors are Zim crickets biggest enemy not the opposition. They do not allow players to develope into postitons long enough to gain confidence.. They continue to play a batsman short when there are already an abundance of bowling options . Picking Ervine and Gumbie for t20 cricket is just crazy stuff, why wouldn't you pick 2 players more suited and look to the future in this format ?

[Kriterion_BD]

Not a whole to say about this game that hasn’t been said or that won’t be said again.

Yeah I noticed Raza keeps making it sound like he IS the batting lineup. I don’t think it’s going to affect the other other guys as I don’t think he means it in a spiteful way.

But the issue is consistency is lacking. Same could be said of the Bangladesh boys too. Not a single batter from either side averages over 25, forget about 25+ with a decent strike rate of 130. Now I don’t think Afghanistan or West Indies have those types of batters either but they can make up for it because they have 8-9 guys who can all hit 200 strike rate knocks. Granted Afghanistan are ranked below Bangladesh at the moment but only just.

Contrast to the Irish lads who chased down 180 against a full strength Pakistan attack without any contributions from Stirling. Barbinie led the way and Tector chipped in. Meanwhile Shanto can’t even score what Tector got in one innings in an entire series.

[sloandog]

Is Brendan Taylor seriously considering a comeback? Or is this just a theory?

[Googly]

It's just a theory. He'd have a couple of years left in the tank.
Personally I'd like to see him in a coaching role, but we need to win at least one game every two years and he might be offered an extortionate amount of money to play.
I think they might try and save face by showing off the Batonka Stadium and wining and dining corrupt ICC officials at Vic Falls and hope they ignore the fact we won't win a game.

Whether they do anything about it or not remains to be seen, but what is dawning on the pointy shoe brigade is that disinterested franchise coaches and staff have contributed to the mess. It's been a source of sheltered shamwari and cousin brother employment for a long time and it's bitten us badly. Anyone can manage a net session, send the message on the group two days before the season starts, half the players pitch up, you personally as the coach can't make it because you're at the clinic getting a penicillin jab so the assistant will cover for you and you're good to go for the first game. A couple of the guys haven't got boots and 3 don't have bats, but they can borrow.

[ZIMDOGGY]

Is Brendan Taylor seriously considering a comeback? Or is this just a theory?

Theory like Googly said, but he did post a poll on his socials a year ago asking his fans/friends/followers if he should resume playing or look to coach when ban expires.

There is a certain logic for him to play until the next WC then pivot into coaching like the rest of the old crew.