Sean Williams to retire from Zimbabwe cricket

[Zimco]

That psychologist like most of them is deluded. Zimbabwe can be a world class team like new Zealand? All we need is an elite psychologist?

New Zealand is a wealthy stable country, Zimbabwe is not.

However he does address that the infighting and inconsistent pay is detrimental to any sport team and it makes our players mentally weaker

[sam_ahm]

My biggest fear is that they might demolish Ireland and that will convince ZC to keep the coaching staff. I really don't know how to feel. It's a tricky situation. I don't think we will qualify directly anyway so losing to Ireland might be better for our long term future if Williams stays. He is by far our best player right now

Losing can never be a good thing and never solves issues.

In my view if Zimbabwe, although unlikely, manage to win all three series' then there could be a lot of positivity within the group, its amazing what a winning feeling can do to your morale. That may trigger Sean to reconsider his time away from cricket.

Let's see, the only good thing is that he is part of this tour and can help in getting some much needed wins.

Ireland and Scotland are very good teams. This is an evenly matched contest. It will be a tight one to call.

[CrimsonAvenger]

Looks like we are again just oversimplifying it and assuming this to be a Sean vs coaching staff thing. Quite a few open questions here:

1. Sean has had disagreements with coaching staff earlier too and vice versa (with Mangongo for example) and that did not push him to take a drastic step like retirement. Also, the speculation about asking him to bat down the order, that's an experiment that can't be cast in stone anyway and could fail and he might be back up at his favorite 4 or 5 soon, that too assuming he was indeed asked to bat lower in the first place. Minor disagreements like this cannot push someone to retirement, surely? Especially the new, passionate and committed Sean Williams we have seen of late?

2. He has indicated that he might came back to play white ball cricket in future. This makes it even more confusing. Firstly, we don't even play many tests anyway. So, why would he make a comeback in the format where we play most of our cricket and not play tests, where he is also the undisputed captain unlike the shorter format musical chairs? Where does that leave the argument of disagreements with the coaching staff? Or is Sean planning to become a white ball specialist and a T20 mercenary?

3. What exactly happened in ruling Sean out of the three home tests recently? The guy was in the form of his life and lost the opportunity to play 3 home games. Did this play on his mind?

4. He is well within his rights to assume that he deserved to be the captain across formats. What does it even mean to be a designated test captain for Zim who play one or two tests a year? Even ZC's statement on Ervine being made captain for the Ireland series seem to retrospectively indicate that they were "rotating captains" (for whatever reason) while clearly, BT, Ervine and Raza all took up captaincy just because of absence of others and Sean got it because Chamu did not deserve to be there in the first place as a player and was rightly not selected.

5. What is even more intriguing for me is that - out of the 4 seniors still active, Hamilton and Sean seemed like the most cordial relationship, compared to Hamilton's equations with BT, Raza or Ervine. So, what changed, if at all?

Whatever it is, ZC needs to act fast and get him to change his decision now, as he is head and shoulder above the other three seniors and also has more years of top quality cricket to offer than the other three.

[Jemisi]

Yeah, good questions

[sam_ahm]

Yes, the reasons given for his retirement although he is saying he may make a come back are quite silly actually. A player won't retire for issues such as batting down the order, missing out on captaincy is dissappointing for a player but you don't retire for that do you?

[Marshmallow]

Rajput is a mediocre coach. What's his record with ZIM?

He was appointed interim in May 2018 before getting the role full time along with Hondo and Matsi.

Country in brackets denote host country

ODIS

Lost 5-0 to Pakistan (ZIM)
Lost 3-0 to SA (SA)
Lost 3-0 to Bangladesh (Bangladesh)
Won 4-0 against UAE (ZIM)
Lost 2-0 to Netherlands (Netherlands)
Lost 3-0 to Ireland (Ireland)
Lost 3-0 to Bangladesh (Bangladesh)
Lot 2-0 to Pakistan (Pakistan) *One match was a tie, did not count is as Zim win*
Lost 3-0 to Bangladesh (Zimbabwe)

4 - 24 - 1 (W - L - T)

T20I

Lost all games (4) in Tri-Series with Australia and Pakistan (ZIM)
Lost 2-0 to SA (SA)
Drew 1-1 with Netherlands (Netherlands)
Drew 1-1 with Ireland (Ireland)
Won 1 of 4 games in Tri-Series with Bangladesh and Afghanistan (Bangladesh)
Won 3 of 4 games in Tri-Series with Singapore and Nepal (Singapore) *Won series*
Lost 2-0 to Bangladesh (Bangladesh)
Lost 3-0 to Pakistan (Pakistan)
Lost 3-0 to Afghanistan (UAE)
Lost 2-1 to Pakistan (Pakistan)
Lost 2-1 to Bangladesh (ZIM)

8 - 24 - 0 (W - L - T)

Test

Drew 1-1 (2) with Bangladesh (Bangladesh)
Lost 1-0 (2) to Sri Lanka (ZIM) - Sri Lanka won by 10 wickets in the match after chasing 14 for victory.
Lost 1-0 (1) to Bangladesh (Bangladesh) - Bangladesh won only match by innings and 106 runs.
Drew 1-1 (2) with Afghanistan (UAE) - We all remember Willow and Don saving us from innings defeat in this one.
Lost 2-0 (2) to Pakistan (ZIM) - Pakistan won both games by an innings, and 116 and 147 runs respectively
Lost 1-0 (1) to Bangladesh (ZIM) - Lost by 220 runs

2 - 8 - 1 (W - L - T)

Not winning a single odi match against full member nation and rajput still got his life.
We know how zc done in past with coaches, but now. only because he is yes man of Zimbabwe cricket board

[secretzimbo]

Another question/oddity;

The media is saying Sean wrote to ZC about his decision a few days ago. Ervine was appointed captain after they received Sean’s decision. Why then, does the ZC statement about Ervine say ‘Sean Williams remains the substantive Test captain’.

[secretzimbo]

https://mobile.twitter.com/Mr_Tich/stat ... 1765642241

Sean confirms Rajput is the reason.

[CrimsonAvenger]

Well, we can trust Sean to be open with his thoughts and it looks pretty clear then. ZC was anyway about to review the coaching setup, so replace Rajput and everything back to normal, surely? I mean - this is a simple thing to fix for ZC if they are serious about it (made complicated by the public outburst now, but still...)

[Marshmallow]

Why zc still stuck with Rajput?
Is there is no any other option? , totally l can't understand what zc complicating it's so much.