Is this our last golden era?

[ZIMDOGGY]

I hate to be the negative Nancy but I’m genuinely concerned we are in our last year ahead of international competitiveness here.
I’ve stated before that all pour bets batsman are in their mid thirties and I just don’t see the talent being here after 2019.
I believe we will be on par with Scotland at best as everyone is going to go at once with no feeder system or economy.

In ten years time we are going to look upon this time the same way we do now with 2004 (not 99 levels) and even then it’s mostly due to raza hammy and Taylor

[jimbo]

Got some good players coming through in murray shumba roche and perhaps madhevere. They wont all retire at once.

[eugene]

If we qualify for the World Cup the phasing out of older players may be more gradual than sudden. If however we fail to qualify the cleanout should probably start sooner than later. Getting Welch and Byrom back should be priorities either way.

[TapsC]

I am actually surprised people want to retire in 2019. I was hoping they push to 2023! Why do I say that? I believe if we keep a core of Ervine, Williams,Raza, Taylor and Cremer we can have a decent period with good results.

So what if they are 36 at the next world cup? The younger guys aren't ready yet. Tari Burl and Blessing and co shouldn't be put under too much pressure. Murray is still in Uni. What's the rush to kick these guys out? I would sacrifice Waller and Hami after the world cup but besides that we don't have enough talent coming through yet.

Looking back we were extremely lucky to have these guys coming through when the rebellion happened. They were actually a golden generation at youth level. We haven't had any u19 team match them yet. Maybe the 2016 team had some decent players but my point is let's not be too quick to get rid of all of them. It has to be done in stages at least.

Imagine if it was the group with PJ Mire and Mutombodzi taking over in 2004. We would have been playing against Kenya and Namibia

[eugene]

The 2004 Under-19 World Cup squad where we finished 5th was one of our most talented.

The team included:
Tino Mawoyo
Elton Chigumbura
Graeme Cremer
Colin de Grandhomme
Craig Ervine
Tinashe Panyangara
Ed Rainsford
Brendan Taylor
Prosper Utseya
Sean Williams

The 2002 squad was strong also:
Elton Chigumbura
Charles Coventry
Stuart Matsikenyeri
Brendan Taylor
Waddington Mwayenga
Tatenda Taibu
Sean Ervine
Hamilton Masakadza

And also one of my favourite young players back in the day - Andrew Durham. Too bad he was lost from the game so soon. Was meant to be the next great Zimbabwean all-rounder.

[Boundary]

The economy will recover and eventually be improved but that's decades. Only then will we be able to restart, and so another wait until we get back to full potential. That means the generation after this will have to spend the rest of their careers being caretakers, whilst the FC system is being rebooted. We need patience from ICC, the problem being: can you really keep hold of full membership just based on future potential?

[Googly]

They’re not being kicked out, unless things change administratively they will leave because it’s a pain in the arse dealing with the lies and the bullshit that is dished out. It’s not easy here, even for the guys on a central contract. At the moment they’re all pulling together for the greater good and there’s lots of cricket on for them and they’re fighting for our existence, but as a rule there’s not much on and it’s not a whole heap of fun. Not that I expect people to believe what I have to say, but people keep talking about the same youngsters ready to fill the void. There’s no young batsmen coming through that are going to do anything other than provide us with an occasional win against an associate side.

I will bet that there’s a big financial incentive dangled by ZC to our boys if we qualify. Qualification is probably worth 20-30m extra for us. Let me rephrase that- ZC will see the money but our cricket will see a fraction of that. If I’m right and we do qualify we will soon hear the bitching because ZC will renege yet again.

[Googly]

There’s definitely going to be an economic upturn, I’m not sure the magnitude. I said earlier there will be a few people that are able goin to get jobs rather than hanging around for $200 every second or third month when ZC have to suffer the inconvenience of paying their FC players.

[Andybligzz]

Yeh big Boots to fill when we lose hammy , Taylor , ervine and raza but if we can hold onto Murray and the likes of Burl ,musakanda and shumba can develope the way we need them to there is still hope for the future . Only way to find talent is to chuck them in the deep end and show patience , history suggest we have talent it’s just a matter of developing it correctly . Not looking forward to life without Taylor though .

[jaybro]

The end always seems so close for Zim cricket so Im not concerned

If we survived the post Rebel era we will survive anything

We don't need 4 first class teams full of international quality players we've never had that but if we can get the likes of Welch, Byrom, Ives, Lake, Shumba, Roche, Medhereve, Murray, Burl, Tari, Synder, TJS etc in the system we will be ok. It's only our batting that will suffer from a mass retirement post 2019, our bowling stocks look good with Blessing, Mumba, Ngarava, Chatara, Mashinge, Masuku, Mavuta, Maigairi, Wellington etc all in the system.