Do the clubs demand fees from the First Class players to play too out of interest?ZIMDOGGY wrote:Thanks LJRiley for the detailed response.
Things are certainly more formal in England than they are here. No way would we pay pepper to play in an amateur league. We actually demand fees.
My further question is,
Why the focus on Zimbabwean talent?
There's only 500 or so players In the country so the well runs dry fairly quickly.
Why don't English teams just pilfer Aussie, safer or kiwi talent? Well runs much deeper.
My club demands a signing on fee and a match fee to play each week. The only players who don't pay any subscriptions are the overseas guys at my club. Everyone else pays for the privilege of pulling on the whites for us. As I mentioned other clubs want to win at all costs so even for English guys who they have plucked from other clubs, offer free cricket and pay them to play.
My club isn't in this financially strong position.
Each year its usually left to me to try and convince guys from other local clubs who we have played against who aren't maybe getting a full crack with the bat or ball because of the paid players at their club to come and play with us for the opportunity to prove themselves at 1st XI. It works quite well but takes a lot of time trying to figure out who to target and who is actually willing to move.
Secondly, pretty simple why to look at Zimbabwean talent....
There's so much of it that can do a very good job at clubs of our standard yet Zimbabwe is kind of overlooked as a nation to provide overseas pros for English cricket.
As you say there is so many Kiwi, Saffa, Aussie lads over but why are Zimbo's overlooked? All the Zim guys I have spoken to are super keen to get over for the right reasons, exposure to conditions in the Northern Hemisphere. With a smaller pool of cricketers in Zim then in theory all cricketers are closer to national selection than these other countries. So in theory if a guy has done well at Franchise level its easier for him to get selected for Zim A / Development XI training camps and selection as there are few players. So these guys are in the high performance programs with access to what should be the best facilities / coaches in Zim training and playing against the best cricketers in the country. So there skill sets should be better than those guys who are maybe just playing premier league and grade cricket in these other countries. The pathway should be easier to get the opportunity to play against the countries best in Zim.
As a package what a club like ours can offer, why offer it to a guy playing 2nd grade cricket in Aus when we can get a Zim FC player for the same deal? The Zim FC player is going to be way better and knowing the uk experience should help his cricket development should on return to Zim FC season make them a more rounded player giving them an even better chance of pushing for Zim A or full Zim honours in this as you mention - smaller pool of players. Aussie, Saffa, Kiwi will still be far away from higher honours as there is so many more cricketers. If a Zim player really puts the effort in over here should pay dividends back home where as guys from other countries are just picking up a pay cheque.
Thoughts?