Afghanistan Tour of Zimbabwe Thread

[Googly]

Its almost embarrassing the Welch is not in one of these squads. I would love to hear their justification on his continued none selection. He currently sits on 60*, having already scored two decent hundreds in FC this season, to go with his LA form. I think it's appalling. Absolutely appalling. I like NW as a player and he's a favourite of mine, but even if Mutumbami or Maruma had scored this many runs, I'd expect their name in a squad at least. The fans deserve to know why.

Ben Curran and Nick Welch should have been the first two names on that list. Congratulations to BC by the way, very well deserved

The why is the 2023/24 season, in which his FC career average briefly dropped below 20. Clearly he's a better player than that, but a year that poor takes more than half a year to undo.

It shouldn't. If you know a guy is quality surely you're waiting for a return to form? If he's a PONI as opposed to a Donki then someone from HPC should be looking at how he got out and helping him which in his case would have been merely questioning the umpires as to why they repeatedly gave him poor decisions If they think he's shit then of course he needs to bang some more runs and prove otherwise, or attempt to.
But shitter than who?
They've given Wes 110 internationals and Clive 50 to become
contributing fixtures in our national side and they're coming up short most times. They've given Maru a very long rope as well and he had an ok series against Pakistan. As soon as we move away from the Ghanas all the games are uber tough, but spin is our nemesis. We're facing another trial by spin next week.
The likes of NW, MW, Curran, Campbell, Kaitano, Gumbie, Kaia, Maruma Myers etc etc are not going to improve in franchise. In fact too long in there and you go backwards.

If they're hoping a guy fails, but the existing guys aren't cutting it then you surely have to revise what you're thinking and at least hope for somebody to do well or we will just keep losing against these better sides. Our goal of one win per series in a dead rubber is a very very low bar.

The latest Takashinga/Zolsky comment about Nick Vs Joylord instigated by Coltart is that its not apples for apples because Nick bats at 4. Well that was as of yesterday as per ZC instruction. Coincidence? He was at 1,2 and 3 for the last 20 years and there's no difference between 3 and opening.

Personally I think Joylord needs to remain as opener in Tests and even in 50 over. He's got a defensive technique that stacks up to international quality bowling, I think he's excellent. If he has a shit run of it then give someone else a go, but in the meantime back the dude, he's quality.

This black white bullshit thing can only cause animosity between players. Joylord and Nick are team mates and Im sure they're friends. Are ZC hoping this race argument spills down to the players AGAIN!!! PLEASE players don't get sucked into this bullshit. Let the ZC hierarchy be dicks all by themselves.

[TapsC2]

The solution here is for Craig and Sean to retire after the England test or after the home tests either against SA or NZ. It's really not that far away to he honest and after that all these guys will be playing and we will be arguing everyday about whether it was a mistake for 39 year olds to be retired or not.

All these guys are 6 months away from those opportunities. Fans should also maintain composure. We are going to try almost everybody decent by the end of next year. No need to create bad blood before the next generation even gets settled. A lot of them are actually teammates at franchise too. You don't need to hype someone up so much that they are expected to fire from the first game. There will be setbacks.

We should be thinking of who is going to bat at 4 and 5 when those 2 legends are gone. Welch? Naqvi? Welch Jr? Myers? Bennett? They will all get their chances to prove themselves sooner rather than later

[Pat_Bee]

The only sensible solution is for the ICC to sanction a sogo rangers deluxe international side operating out of the autonomy of somebody’s private cricket ground in their garden the flagship of the sogo brand.

[Googly]

I agree wholeheartedly with your comments. Ive said this before but the fact is that Williams, Ervine and Raza are putting a spanner in the works for the next generation.
Ordinarily they should retire when they want to or when they get overtaken, but in this instance the timing is terrible because of the 2027 WC we are hosting.
The likelihood is that one, two or three of them will be on the wane just prior to the 2027 WC and they end up compromising us. That sounds stupid, can we be more shit than we already are?
Well sadly we know the answer, there is no bottom to the disasters that await us under this regime. The less time the new guys get to step up the worse off we're going to be, there's no escaping that.

They all look very fit and strong and the ageing thing is highly individual. I've been googling and Craig (39) is the oldest full member international batsman, which probably puts Raza (38) and Sean (38) in the top 5 Maybe I haven't looked hard enough but we've got 3 of the oldest players. Just wow that after all these years they're the best we've got. Not downing them in any way, they're damned fine players, just staggering that in 20 years there hasn't been one other. What an indictment!!
Raza is here to squeeze some more T20 gigs. If he wanted to leave our cricket in a better place he'd have done a few things differently because he has major influence, most of us dont buy into his passionate speeches anymore. He will also get a ZC gig (god forbid) if he wants one. Craig and Sean don't have that luxury and probably need to get as much cash as possible before that sad day comes.

[secretzimbo]

I absolutely do think Craig will get a ZC gig. Not necessarily a meaningful one. But some sort of indefinite pay packet that buys his silence, a bit like Houghton or Jarvis and the many many other black guys. I think they’ll look after him, he’s never rocked the boat.

They probably won’t do the same for Sean, and I imagine he wants nothing to do with them.

[secretzimbo]

At least one, maybe both of them, will retire after Trent Bridge I think.

[Googly]

Latest Zolsky tweet now that NW has been dropped to 4 in Mountaineers is that he's competing against Raza (who is also a bowler) and Myers, both of whom are undroppable.
This is becoming like a whodunit movie
It was Mutendira in the hallway with a candlestick holder.
NW should ask to alternate his batting position from 1,2, 5, 6, 7, and 8, cover all bases because those two are getting the next 200 games

[zimfan1]

I'm struggling to see the benefits of Ervine in ODIs at the moment ahead of Campbell, Munyonga and Welch.

One loser of the last few months is Ryan Burl, his lack of playing first class and List A domestic cricket is going to bite him hard, we now have guys who are scoring regular centuries in domestic cricket, Burl has lost the ability to build an innings and score big runs apart from the odd quickfire smash down the order.

I think he is really going to struggle to get in the ODI side over the next couple of years, his bowling is probably just keeping him in the T20 side. Sad that at number 5 he looks at least one place too high.

He is basically displaying the problems of monopolies in business, has had a lack of competition over the last few years which has made him inefficient and lazy. Same thing happened with Kodak and digital cameras.

[zimfan1]

Latest Zolsky tweet now that NW has been dropped to 4 in Mountaineers is that he's competing against Raza (who is also a bowler) and Myers, both of whom are undroppable.
This is becoming like a whodunit movie
It was Mutendira in the hallway with a candlestick holder.
NW should ask to alternate his batting position from 1,2, 5, 6, 7, and 8, cover all bases because those two are getting the next 200 games

I think Nick is not far away now, scary how many runs certain players need to score to even be in the conversation whilst others get by on the whole "once in a generation" bullshit.

[Pat_Bee]

I'm struggling to see the benefits of Ervine in ODIs at the moment ahead of Campbell, Munyonga and Welch.

One loser of the last few months is Ryan Burl, his lack of playing first class and List A domestic cricket is going to bite him hard, we now have guys who are scoring regular centuries in domestic cricket, Burl has lost the ability to build an innings and score big runs apart from the odd quickfire smash down the order.

I think he is really going to struggle to get in the ODI side over the next couple of years, his bowling is probably just keeping him in the T20 side. Sad that at number 5 he looks at least one place too high.

He is basically displaying the problems of monopolies in business, has had a lack of competition over the last few years which has made him inefficient and lazy. Same thing happened with Kodak and digital cameras.

We’ve all told him many times he needed up his batting game he was on thin ice during that Ireland series like pretty much a year ago now. Think he had one good knock and it bought him 20 odd games. Competition for his place these days though, jonno, naqvi when he’s sorted. Not as secure as he was.