Why is it that we haven't produced any express bowlers??

[betterdays]

Expres(I didn't notice that 149 effort - I thought his effort balls in NZ were 142/3). .

ok, my bad

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2876&start=30#p39202

89 mph .... which was shock enough!

[Jemisi]

Yeah, so could I. I watched most balls, but could have missed it.

[sloandog]

89Mph is 144Kph chaps. 140 is 87Mph and 138 is bordering 86. just saying

[ZIMDOGGY]

yeah non poms get confused onthe miles conversion...

As for Kyle Jarvis (who is a zimbabwean internationalpacemen currently playing in new zealand and apparently doing well)
i believe he WAS 149 thereabouts before his stress fracture, and he has come back predictably slower but more accurate

hes even quoted as saying he isnt as quick as before and wants to build his muscles

[Jemisi]

His runup atm seems too slow for really express pace.

[Flower power]

I think guys like Chris Mpofu need to eat a bit more. C'mon, the looks like he's gonna get swept away by the wind. A few good sessions in the gym won't hurt either.

I think Mpofu is naturally skinny , some people you cant just add the pounds ........

[hhm]

In answer to your question takleg, I don't really know! The answer though, may lie in looking at other sports. Genetically you can consider the case of rugby and the Australasia teams - Samoa, Tonga & Fiji who are naturally stronger, fitter, faster & bulkier, but hardly execute as well as teams like Eng&France! In terms of diet, the Kenyans&Ethiopians (mostly originating from poor, rural backgrounds) don't benefit from the same quality as most Europian countries, but have more stamina, endurance & dominate long distance running. American sports have proven that race has got nothing to with it because in the NFL, NBA & MLB, we've got a fare share of Whites who were dominant & record breaking, something Blacks have since replicated en masse once those sports were opened up to them. The only odd thing is sprints where Blacks are way ahead, but sprints also answer one thing physique doesn't always have everything to do with it, as tall, short, broad&muscular, plus slim individuals have at different times held the 100m record!

So it leaves one thing money! With money you receive superior education in the form of enlightenment. Through things which your family can afford - magazines, TV, attending live matches etc, you are aware of the kind of targets you need to reach at an early age i.e. pace, range of shorts, milestones - all of which serves to spare you on! Secondary to that is the superior form of equipment, coaching and training that give you the edge in the sense that you execute better, which complements your abilities whether you're naturally talented or not. A combination of both things things tends to make you more confident and better placed to back yourself - hence better results! That for me is the key/direct difference money brings - not diet, physique etc!

The reson why South African Whites haven't excelled as well as Zimbabwean Whites, is due to those benefits being spread across a wider range of people, in turn increasing higher chances of the likes of Donald & de Lange filtering through!

Perhaps we don't have that many guys who bowl quick because they've had to hold back during most of their development years. I was very quick, but(along with some of my peers), couldn't bowl fast half the time because most of the kids we played with(Black&White) didn't have pads&helmets - unfortunately I wasn't too keen on someone's sweat all over my pads - some guys were quite comfortable to rock up with just shorts on, at times minus shoes! Broken bloody nose, fractured fingers, shins etc were commonplace. So there's another reason for you to back up the money issue - we couldn't afford pads!

The core active cricket playing population of Zimbabwean is really less than 10 years. Just like Blacks in America you can expect to see a vast difference from about 2020 onwards. The same happened to for example India which had a transformation, mostly restricted to batting&spin - all which happened before the gowth of the Indian economy, but years after their invovelment in cricket. Zimbabwe will be different in the sense that African tend to have more stamina than subcontinent people, so in place of spin, you can add pace attacks to our potential future strenghts!

We might not have produced express pace, but we have produced pretty quick bowlers in this order:
1.Olonga, 2.Friend, 3.Watambwa, 4.Nicolson, 5.Blignaut, 6.Elton, 7.Jarvis, 8.Shingi 9.Mpofu, 10.Chatara
The top 3 could bowl quick all day. Nicolson ahowed he's capable. Blignaut could bowl consistently quick once in a while, but Elton&Jarvis fall in the same category because at their best they are/were mostly 138-142kph, which they can't/couldn't sustain - Elton at his quickest was far more threatening&aggressive than Jarvis - bouncy zipping balls. Mpofu has bowled 149kph before, but in truth him and Shingi cannot bowl as fast as this pair, mainly around the 136-138kph mark, except they can sustain that pace for longer, while others dip embarassingly. Chatara is unproven, but I think he'll be in the top 5. Aliseni is a myth! Streak settled into a 128-132 mark far too early in his career, frankly, I think he got away with murder because of the swing reputation he built up!

[PieChucker]

Mpofu has bowled 149kph before,

That has got to be a typo. Didn't bowl one other ball over 140.
He's a medium pacer - can get it up to the high 130's but doesn't seem to have the strength to bang it down any faster..

[ZIMDOGGY]

to bowl fast you need tall lean muscular body types

thats where blacks have an advantage over indian/sri lankan types, whos bodys are more suited to tech. support. and since zimbabweans are mainly blacks they should be supplying raw pace en masse i wouldve thought.

when you feed zimbabweans they can have the physique, and footspeed is a non issue as that has always genetically come natural to blacks.

The only thing i think is that the athletic blacks pursue soccer, and others suffer from malnutrition by athlete standards.

[Jemisi]

What about Larwood. He was short, but had massive guns and a quick run up.