If You Ran ZC....

[maehara]

So as we've read, Minister for Education, Culture and Sport David Coltart has grand plans to revive sport in Zimbabwe, including cricket. But if you were in charge of ZC, what would you do to try and turn the game's fortunes around? Bear in mind that you wouldn't have unlimited money at your disposal (I believe Full Members get in the region of US$10m in ICC funds each year), so you have to live within the organisations means, and if your suggestion(s) can feed into some other aspect of Zimbabwe's recovery, all the better.

1 suggestion per post, and we can discuss them and come up with a shortlist.

My first suggestion: I'm going to avoid the obvious (roles for returning 'rebels'), and look at something different. ZC has become far too reliant on Harare Sports Club as a home ground, and reading between the lines on news of the ICC report on Zimbabwe's current standing, it seems that Queen's Sports Club is no longer considered good enough to host full internationals - once considered one of the best wickets on the international circuit, the ground has deteriorated since QSC groundsman Noel Peck retired.

Different grounds have different characteristics, and for the team to develop, they need to experience as many different surfaces as possible. It's also not fair for Harare to get all Zimbabwe's internationals - and so efforts should be made to get more grounds up to international standard - certainly QSC, while Mutare and Kwekwe should also be brought up to good enough standard for 'A' internationals, which they used to hold regularly.

Longer term, I've always thought an international ground at Victoria Falls would be a great idea - a location within sight of the Falls' spray would be a real tourist draw, far more than Harare or Bulawayo.

Over to you...

[brmtaylor.com admin]

Club cricket needs to be addressed. I'm not sure how much money it would cost, but they need to get the appropriate equipment out to the clubs. Not just in terms of actual cricket gear, but also machinery to maintain the grounds. Better coaching needs to be made available, so efforts should be made to get overseas coaches in. Hold clinics for club players, anything to up the standard of club cricket.

Because of the lack of updates it's hard to know what the situation with schools cricket is, but players from top cricket schools like Falcon College should be playing club cricket where possible (as long as it doesn't impact other studies and things like that). Those schools cricketers are getting good coaching, so their inclusion would increase playing standards.

Longer term, I've always thought an international ground at Victoria Falls would be a great idea - a location within sight of the Falls' spray would be a real tourist draw, far more than Harare or Bulawayo.

This might be a reality soon. A site has been allocated to build a full international venue at Victoria Falls. The issue is money though, until the economic situation becomes more favourable progress will be slow. And Victoria Falls and ZC are not affiliated (there was no benefit for Vic Falls in doing so), so the Victoria Falls Cricket Club will be going it alone in anything they choose to do - at least for the time being.

The current venue at Victoria Falls is the ground at Victoria Falls Primary School. The Indians have been there in the past and hosted clinics and there is a chance that touring sides this year will play some friendlies there. Maybe a South African Legends XI will play there which would be exciting if it came to fruition.

[Sir Mupariwa]

Iagree with what brmtaylor said, club cricket is key if we are going to improve the standard of the game in Zim. We should be able to have permanent club teams and a clear calender for say the whole year or even longer. We have produced a lot of promising young players in the previous years who have disappeared because of the lack of planing. If we can manage to do this then we will bridge the gap between school boy cricket and international cricket.

Also making sure that the national team players have confidence in the board is very crucial,

[brmtaylor.com admin]

Iagree with what brmtaylor said, club cricket is key if we are going to improve the standard of the game in Zim. We should be able to have permanent club teams and a clear calender for say the whole year or even longer. We have produced a lot of promising young players in the previous years who have disappeared because of the lack of planing. If we can manage to do this then we will bridge the gap between school boy cricket and international cricket.

Also making sure that the national team players have confidence in the board is very crucial,

The point about the calender is a really good one. Obviously the economic climate isn't really conductive to much in Zimbabwe at the moment, which is why the National League was cancelled and then brought back (presumably because of a funding boost from somewhere).

A few years ago the schedule was much more structured, I think the Logan Cup started late in the year and spanned a couple of months with the club games and the Faithwear games in between. The small player base might not be able to support that now, but there should at least be some sort of annual structure rather than last minute planning.



Anyway, for a new point, something which is a bit obscure. To revive interest in domestic cricket (which I assume wouldn't be pulling in capacity crowds), maybe an annual 3 match Twenty20 series could be played between Harare and Bulawayo - what rugby and football would call "a state of origin" series. So each team would be represented by people actually born in that region. The bulk of the players on each team would be from the national team, so the quality of the cricket would be quite good.

The venue for the series could change each year to keep it fair. One year at HSC, next year at Queens, and so on. If it took off, it would be the highlight of the domestic calendar. Funding would be a problem though - in order to get very high attendances (could HSC hold 10,000? If so I think that should be an aim) you would have to offer free attendance and promote it heavily in the lead-up through TV advertising and newspaper advertising. It's one of those sort of things where you might have to accept running it at a loss initially - but over the course of a few years if it became popular enough (and introduced cricket to more people) it might become profitable. Especially if ZC and Ten Sports were to come to some sort of agreement whereby the games were televised, which could open up the possibility of foreign sponsorship.

[Sir Mupariwa]

well said^^

The issue of advertising is also crucial like you said if we are going to boost attendances. You have to be a big cricket fan to know about Zim cricket national team fixture let alone club cricket.

[Detective RDS]

I think,the first class cricket is very important to create players.The fixture of FC cricket needs to be expanded.Club cricket also needs to be played along with FC cricket.I think Zimbabwean players used to play less FC cricket for the lack of FC tournaments.FC cricket is a platform for the players to show their performance in the way of their inclusion in the national side.So,I feel the number FC games have to be increased.Zimbabwe can follow countries like South Africa,India or Pakistan.

I am giving here an instance.Quaid-e-Azam Trophy(A FC tournament of Pakistan) has 113 FC matches total.Here is the fixture of it:

http://content-ind.cricinfo.com/pakista ... 82620.html

So,just imagine how much the players gather FC cricket experience under their belt.By playing more FC cricket,the country will be benifited much by getting back up players.The players will be created from tournaments like this.Individual performance will come and the young guys will start to learn international cricket from the very early stage of their cricket career which will definitely help them to be class players.

The number of teams will have to increased along with the number of FC matches.It also has to be ensured that all the talented players of Zimbabwe have participated.I will communicate with the former players who have left Zimbabwe in the recent past and try to convince them to play domestic cricket in Zimbabwe and play for their country.

The pitch plays a great role in building up players.The standard of the FC cricket has to be high and the pitch must be sporting.Generally in the recent past I have seen the pitches of Zimbabwe are very slow,runs are very hard to come.It needs to be eradicated.Various sorts of pitches like pacy,bouncy,spinning,slow,fast have to made to suit the players in different conditions.Though it will take much time and economy,I would preffer increase the number of FC game in Zimbabwe.

As brmtaylor.com said,cricket must be promoted in the country.The media can play a great role in this prospect.The recent news about cricket and different updated scores of FC cricket and club cricket needs to gathered by the local newspapers.I also think that ZC and Ten Sports should make a deal to promote the cricket of Zimbabwe and live telecast the international matches played by Zimbabwean national side.