Zimbabwe vs India 2022 First One day International

[sam_ahm]

There are some articles going around which suggest KL Rahul needs more game time (he is back after a long time off) and that India might bat first even if they win the toss to ensure Rahul and others get enough time to bat before the Asia Cup.

[zimbos_05]

Not sure why people are doubting the significance of the pitch or the conditions on the previous page.

I think we are looking at the Bang series and how badly we batted in the second innings in all of those games. So how can all of a sudden the pitch be the problem, especially to lose by 10 wickets.

Yes the pitch plays up and has its swing early morning, but to the level we saw, not likely. As the home side too, our guys should know the conditions better than them and how to play it.

[secretzimbo]

Not sure why people are doubting the significance of the pitch or the conditions on the previous page.

I think we are looking at the Bang series and how badly we batted in the second innings in all of those games. So how can all of a sudden the pitch be the problem, especially to lose by 10 wickets.

Yes the pitch plays up and has its swing early morning, but to the level we saw, not likely. As the home side too, our guys should know the conditions better than them and how to play it.

I agree, it sounds like the boys just didn't play well yesterday. India are 10x better than us, which I've said. I highly doubt we are likely to win a game even if we bowl first.

But the early morning swing at this time of year and this time of day is extreme in Harare. And the pitches are really flattening out. They are unique conditions, and it definitely tilts things quite strongly in the favour of the team bowling first. As Taps said, I agree, winning the toss probably gives us a 20% chance or so of getting a result, whilst batting first probably makes it impossible for us.


It's kind of like batting first in England in January at 9am. Except the weather gets nice in the afternoon and the pitches are roads.

[Googly]

Vusi, Masakadza and Mawoyo actually did the opening job very well, they would spend time on the pitch and face as many balls and blunt the attack, their strike rate was poor, but they helped lay the platform for Taylor ,Ervine,Williams,Waller,Chigumbura.

Our scores during that period were not magnificent but they actually took the shine off the new ball. In most circumstances Vusi would play a 30 of 80 balls, Hami would also play a 30 of 90 balls and Tino pretty much 20 of 70 balls.

Very often we would find ourselves on 3/80 inside 35 overs and we would struggle to get to 260 in a ODI, their main problem was strike rate and rotating the strike.

If you compare that to what we have now it’s more of a 2/26 runs inside 10 overs.
We were used to 2/70 inside 30 overs.

So yes I think they did the opening job better than our current lot.

And yes I think Wes and Shumba should open because there is no point hiding them in the middle of the batting line up which is stacked with Ervine,Williams,Raza,Chakabva, Burl. The only issue with this middle order sit up is non of them are comfortable facing a new ball.

Which is what an opening partnership needs to do take the shine off the new ball.

Wes and Shumba are the future at the Moment so they should be persisted with in opening the slot, as some of the guys in the middle order retire then they can slide in to the middle order as they would have at least gained valuable experience required by facing the new ball

You're not really comparing apples with apples. ODI cricket is advancing and those slow starts with one or two down would certainly suit us right now, but they're not ideal.
I'm not disputing that Mawoyo, Masakadza and to a lesser degree Sibanda didn't do a better job than our current crop, they certainly did, and against better opposition.

What I am disputing is what you're saying about Madhevere and Shumba being the future. It's bandied around all the time. It's like assuming Ballance will save the day. He won't, he's one guy, but as a fact he's currently better than Wes and Milton combined.
They're both going to have to seriously improve just to get to half way to matching the hype. How long can you keep talking them up before they deliver? They've both got quite a few games under their belts now and haven't met the expectations. For sure they both look like they can be decent, but at the current rate it's going to take a while.
I keep watching Madhevere closely and he's got big potential, but when is he going to make a few hundreds and be more consistent? He's certainly got the ability, but without results it don't mean diddly. I mean who'd have thought Kaia would have got a hundred before Madhevere?
He may not even get one, that's the truth.
They're not being consistent and they're not even opening, and now you want them to open?

The real future is in keeping the domestic and club games going, ensuring we get some overseas guys in to raise the level, get some county teams here for the same purpose and early identification of age group players for specialised coaching and ensuring pathways. What ZC have done is dropped the ball big time in this department and they've lost our 3 or 4 best young players by assuming Wes, Milton and Deon will take up the slack without too much time, effort and cost to ZC. They've latched onto these guys with relief, but the reality is that other member nations have about 100 young guys of this calibre and they expose them to a high standard of cricket and from there maybe a dozen really shine. We've skipped that very necessary step. We've taken 3 of those hundred and hoped they'll be 3 of those dozen. Statistically highly unlikely.

All they've really wanted is a national side that doesn't lose too embarrassingly and f#£% what happens below that. They've seen 20 years too late that it doesn't work and the only reason they're jumping around now is because they're worried our money will be cut off and we can longer hide the state of our cricket. We've been badly and embarrassingly exposed of late.
Anyway we need to look forward and hope these ZC fellows continue implementing the recent changes that they're getting credit for that should be bog standard cricketing administration and should have been ongoing from 20 years ago.

[zimlover]

Vusi, Masakadza and Mawoyo actually did the opening job very well, they would spend time on the pitch and face as many balls and blunt the attack, their strike rate was poor, but they helped lay the platform for Taylor ,Ervine,Williams,Waller,Chigumbura.

Our scores during that period were not magnificent but they actually took the shine off the new ball. In most circumstances Vusi would play a 30 of 80 balls, Hami would also play a 30 of 90 balls and Tino pretty much 20 of 70 balls.

Very often we would find ourselves on 3/80 inside 35 overs and we would struggle to get to 260 in a ODI, their main problem was strike rate and rotating the strike.

If you compare that to what we have now it’s more of a 2/26 runs inside 10 overs.
We were used to 2/70 inside 30 overs.

So yes I think they did the opening job better than our current lot.

And yes I think Wes and Shumba should open because there is no point hiding them in the middle of the batting line up which is stacked with Ervine,Williams,Raza,Chakabva, Burl. The only issue with this middle order sit up is non of them are comfortable facing a new ball.

Which is what an opening partnership needs to do take the shine off the new ball.

Wes and Shumba are the future at the Moment so they should be persisted with in opening the slot, as some of the guys in the middle order retire then they can slide in to the middle order as they would have at least gained valuable experience required by facing the new ball

You're not really comparing apples with apples. ODI cricket is advancing and those slow starts with one or two down would certainly suit us right now, but they're not ideal.
I'm not disputing that Mawoyo, Masakadza and to a lesser degree Sibanda didn't do a better job than our current crop, they certainly did, and against better opposition.

What I am disputing is what you're saying about Madhevere and Shumba being the future. It's bandied around all the time. It's like assuming Ballance will save the day. He won't, he's one guy, but as a fact he's currently better than Wes and Milton combined.
They're both going to have to seriously improve just to get to half way to matching the hype. How long can you keep talking them up before they deliver? They've both got quite a few games under their belts now and haven't met the expectations. For sure they both look like they can be decent, but at the current rate it's going to take a while.
I keep watching Madhevere closely and he's got big potential, but when is he going to make a few hundreds and be more consistent? He's certainly got the ability, but without results it don't mean diddly. I mean who'd have thought Kaia would have got a hundred before Madhevere?
He may not even get one, that's the truth.
They're not being consistent and they're not even opening, and now you want them to open?

The real future is in keeping the domestic and club games going, ensuring we get some overseas guys in to raise the level, get some county teams here for the same purpose and early identification of age group players for specialised coaching and ensuring pathways. What ZC have done is dropped the ball big time in this department and they've lost our 3 or 4 best young players by assuming Wes, Milton and Deon will take up the slack without too much time, effort and cost to ZC. They've latched onto these guys with relief, but the reality is that other member nations have about 100 young guys of this calibre and they expose them to a high standard of cricket and from there maybe a dozen really shine. We've skipped that very necessary step. We've taken 3 of those hundred and hoped they'll be 3 of those dozen. Statistically highly unlikely.

All they've really wanted is a national side that doesn't lose too embarrassingly and f#£% what happens below that. They've seen 20 years too late that it doesn't work and the only reason they're jumping around now is because they're worried our money will be cut off and we can longer hide the state of our cricket. We've been badly and embarrassingly exposed of late.
Anyway we need to look forward and hope these ZC fellows continue implementing the recent changes that they're getting credit for that should be bog standard cricketing administration and should have been ongoing from 20 years ago.

The cupboards are empty if we are talking about openers in our current setup the next guy in line is May be Maunze but I don’t see him being any better. Wes and Shumba are 21 and 22 respectively I would rather they persist with them and we hope and pray they learn quick because they have 2 to 3 years before they become the mainstay of the middle order replacing Craig Ervine and Williams. With Munyonga and Burl taking up the other spots it still leaves space at the top.
If the cricket Gods smile at us May be we will see Ballance and One of the Curran boys come back that will be a good sent.That could just be a dream or a baseless rumour.

The reality is we have no one ready to step up and open. Everyone wants a spot in the middle order.Should Ervine open with Kaitano? Hopefully he could show him a thing or two about building an innings and watching the moving ball.

Should Ervine open with Kia? in an ideal situation the experienced batsman opens with a young gun but helps to keep him calm and teaches him how to build an innings.
In other set ups the experienced guys open the batting.
We literally have no one with any skill to face the moving ball and that has been highlighted by Indian bowlers.

The few positives about the middle order is that we seem to have improved on how we handle spin bowling, but we have really gone back on how we face quality fast bowlers especially swing. That’s also a reflection of the quality of fast bowlers we have in our domestic set up.

County teams touring is good for improving our local standards but that will take time before we see any tangible results it takes 15 to 10 years to develop a quality cricketer.

[secretzimbo]

I keep saying it, Kevin Kasuza could do a decent enough job opening in ODIs. Not world beating but he's on a par with Kaia at least surely. Deserves a chance at some point.

[Googly]

The harsh reality is that we will never get cricket going in the right direction here unless people can make a living from playing franchise cricket.

Young players with options will take a look and if they can't see a pathway into the national side within a year or two they will look at alternatives. It's naive of them because although we lose regularly we have some good players that a 19 year old is unlikely to match from the get go. They usually need some time at domestic level and even that's not so easy.
Until they find a way of making franchise a sustainable living we will never get players to stay and will lose players with options and it has a knock on effect because the standard goes down.
The most obvious thing is to make the squads much smaller- 18 tops. It's harsh on the other 10 that lose out to what amounts to beer money, but it's what people actually survive on.
Everyone puts blame on the economy, but its not entirely true. They need to pay a much smaller franchise squad an annual wage if they want to be serious. Good players look at our cricket as an all or nothing scenario- Either I make the national side in a year or I quit! They have to be able to look at franchise cricket as sustainable for at least 5 years. Whether ZC have the money to do that we will never know. In a better economic environment would ZC get corporate sponsorship to help with this? They might, they would definitely if ZC had personnel that people had some faith in.
Put a reliable guy in charge of the purse strings and make sure he drives a Merc 240D 1978 model, not a guy in a VX 300 with pointy shoes, gold tooth, gold cuff links and a Rolex.