Talent retention- the way forward

[Tinah09]

With the U19 WC winding down, some/most forumites are anxious about the availability of these kids (at least some of them) for future Chevron teams. We have seen one U19 cohort offer another disappearing to England, some fortunate ones making the cut for county cricket, some playing for obscure clubs, some “attending university”.

I’m not well versed in the laws, but can these British passport holding ex-U19 still come and play for Zim even as they are contracted to a county? Is it the law in England that forbids them? Is it ZC? My understanding is that ZC wants you to play some domestic games to be eligible for the natl team, most of the ex-U19 England players do this. Aren’t Schadendorf, Welch, Curran back for to play in the Logan cup?. Zim plays at most 6 bilateral series per year, so these players really won’t be away from thier counties for long.

From a football perspective, if Egypt can call arguably the worlds best football player Mohammad Salah from one of the biggest clubs in the world, Liverpool, to play in the African cup of nations, I don’t get how it can be so complicated that the laws can be tweaked to allow willing Zim England-based cricketers to come for the rare 3 ODI series vs Sri Lanka ? .

It’s not like Nottinghamshire will implode if Schadendorf leaves for a two week series in Colombo, plus won’t the experience he will get there be valuable for their organisation? . As for the “ambition to play for England”, I think we can all agree that Ballance was a once-off, we’re witnessing a well-oiled Britan U19 dominate the U19 WC, this considerably lessens the odds of any Zim ex-U19 cricketer of ever playing for England.

I guess this is director Hamis job to ponder, but if it’s our laws preventing talent retention, the laws have to be changed asap

[secretzimbo]

The way it works, is that Welch, Curran, etc etc, play for their Counties as 'Local' and England-eligible players.

If they suddenly played a senior international game for Zim (or any other country) then they would be ineligible to play for England and would have to be registered as 'Overseas' players. Counties can only register 2 overseas players per season, and obviously none of these guys are good enough for that rare status. So they'd lose their County contracts.

Ireland have the same problem since they got Full Member status. Stirling still gets picked by Middlesex as an Overseas, but the rest of them have lost their County gigs.

[secretzimbo]

The good thing in terms of England is that young white kids in Zim who qualify for British Ancestry Visas is slowly declining with the passage of time as we move through the generations. There's still a few in the current squad eligible, but give it another 10 years and I imagine there will be very very few.

University route is replacing it, as we are seeing. They've recently reintroduced a 'Graduate visa', which means anyone who finishes three years of university there, can stay and work afterwards for several years as well, in any job. So uni is now a good option for a long-term British visa.

[secretzimbo]

Mitchell has a full British passport somehow (rare).
Matt Welch qualifies for an Ancestry Visa.

The others, I'm not sure about.

[Tinah09]

The way it works, is that Welch, Curran, etc etc, play for their Counties as 'Local' and England-eligible players.

If they suddenly played a senior international game for Zim (or any other country) then they would be ineligible to play for England and would have to be registered as 'Overseas' players. Counties can only register 2 overseas players per season, and obviously none of these guys are good enough for that rare status. So they'd lose their County contracts.

Ireland have the same problem since they got Full Member status. Stirling still gets picked by Middlesex as an Overseas, but the rest of them have lost their County gigs.

Thanks for the explanation SZ!. Damn, then there’s no way of reversing the talent drain!! Now I understand. There’s no way of going around this

[secretzimbo]

As has been mentioned, the franchise contracts here are just too low for any kid with any kind of academic or career potential.

Thick kids or kids from poor backgrounds will stay for $300 a month. But consider all our youth prospects come from top schools, most are very smart and have a number of non-cricket options both home and abroad that may pay a lot more than that. You have to be very very confident of breaking into the National team contracts very quickly, to stay and play for a few hundred dollars a month. The national contracts are very well paid at the moment, though. But there's only about 14 of them.

This situation very much answers, for example, the question people ask; 'Is Evans interested in playing for Zim?'. He must be! He's graduated for university, is a smart kid, has options, but is now grinding it out for a very low salary. We can assume from that that he is desparate to play cricket for the national team.

[Tinah09]

I guess, to be blunt, ZC needs to put more effort into unearthing talent from poorer communities. It appears with most sports, hunger and desperation are driving forces that can in part make up for low resources. Perhaps this is why Bangladesh has rapidly become a force to reckon with. A bunch of poor kids who see cricket as the only way to a dignified life. Sometimes not having a plan B is enough motivation to make it.Having a safety net could be antithetical to a successful sports career ( with low entrance-level salaries) unless you really love the game.

[Googly]

Age group selection has always favored high density schools and Churchill over the private schools.
If there was such a thing as ghetto cricket then we'd be awash with poor kids with great talent, waiting to showcase their skills for $300 a month, but it's not the case. Football is the main sport and yet we can't produce a Ronaldo or a Ronhaldino either.

Hell will freeze over before cricket is played on every street corner like it is in Asian countries. It would be nice for us and ZC in particular, but it ain't going to happen.

[Tinah09]

The way it works, is that Welch, Curran, etc etc, play for their Counties as 'Local' and England-eligible players.

If they suddenly played a senior international game for Zim (or any other country) then they would be ineligible to play for England and would have to be registered as 'Overseas' players. Counties can only register 2 overseas players per season, and obviously none of these guys are good enough for that rare status. So they'd lose their County contracts.

Ireland have the same problem since they got Full Member status. Stirling still gets picked by Middlesex as an Overseas, but the rest of them have lost their County gigs.

Follow-up question, does having an England passport make you a citizen? Because in Australia, only Australian citizens are eligible for the Australian passport. If hypothetically having the England passport makes you a citizen, that makes you a dual Zim-Brit citizen? Like Macauley Bonne, Tendayi Darikwa, Admiral Muskwe who play professionally in the UK as locals and okay international football for Zimbabwe (they were all born in England, I think).

[Googly]

And you can have 1000's of kids playing street cricket, it doesn't mean anything unless they get noticed and get sent to a school with facilities and coaching and they play other schools that play a high standard of cricket. There is not one box here that will ever ever be ticked. People can talk about grass roots all they like but it won't and can't work. It's not the model here because it simply doesn't exist.

Go and ask any good player in that wc their background- not one will say- some guy found me playing on the beach last year, he strapped some pads on me and hey presto, I was a genius overnight. I'm being sarcastic because it's annoying listening to grass roots mumbo jumbo.