Zimbabwe vs South Africa / 1st T20 / Tri-Series / Harare

[Googly]

Ya Strang was a damned good player, as was Cremer, but Strang for me.

[Googly]

Where I would invite you to clarify is your thoughts on identifying talent and running with them over stats vs when the opposite is true.

You're a huge advocate on backing the players that can make it over players with a lower ceiling, but players like Nyamhuri arent ready.

I know exactly what you mean when you say this, because he is too raw and too young, but I know there are small minded people here that will pick this apart and attack you.

Im assuming this is for me?
Personally I think Nyamhuri's early selection had something to do with Maphaka's u19 WC. ZC decided it was a good idea because SA did it, as did/do a few other teams who have a sharp u19 player. Nyamhuri caused problems at u19 level and for sure has potential. When youre not doing well as a team it's more than understandable to hope so and so is the answer. If only it were that easy.

Maphaka hasn't actually been as good as the hype either. Still decent enuf, but it hasn't been as easy for him as people thought.
There are better bowlers in SA that Maphaka has jumped ahead of as well. The playing field is not level.
It's a lot easier for a young bowler to recover from a clubbing than a batter though. Different dept. You can see Maphaka is a self-assured, confident, almost arrogant young man. Newman is a quiet respectful dude. Great traits as a person, but you probably need a few character flaws to make you a world class athlete
What happens a lot is a young guy gets a shot, does well initially, then the grown-ups get on top of him and the guy has to fix some issues to remain relevant at the higher level. Some don't manage that. And it's almost impossible to do in our environment.

ZC just dont ever seem to grasp that we need a world class HPC, manned by proper coaches, video equipment, and all the bits and pieces.

Here's a concrete fact. If you got a 17 year old Kallis, Smith, Clark, Root etc and put them in our system for 3 to 4 years to do their time you're not getting the same player out the back end. Not ever. You're getting someone of the caliber of our top players......maybe. Our system destroys talent. Its actually astonishing that we compete at all.
Yet we have to compete against that type of player and when we lose the team gets cussed to death. They just haven't been given the tools.
We have to have a world class HPC asap. Its not hard and it's not that expensive, just takes some good admin.

If you take the world's best batters and ask them their history, they were all gifted at school level, they all had an excellent individual coach, most had a rock solid support base and they all hit thousands of balls from a young age. Most were handled very very carefully as well. Its the bare minimum requirement. My big gripe is seeing talented black kids playing games or trialing without a parent in sight. That kid is swimming upstream. There are a few for sure, but ask them about cricket and they know nothing. Again the kid has a major hurdle to overcome.