Is Dion Myers gone for the next 4 years?

[Zimco]

Well how does his brother do a degree and then stay on?
Home Office usually calls you about 3 weeks after you've finished your degree and ask you when you're fucking off back from whence you came.
Something doesn't quite add up. Either he has more eligibility than your average international student or....
If there's a way to fudge a system you can trust a Zimbabwean to find it , not that I'm suggesting anything untoward
So if DM has some kind of extra foot in the door he may well get to play some decent cricket there.

Spot on Googly! trust a Zimbo to always find loopholes in immigration law.

What's an extra foot in the door these days Googly, you can't even play county or an ancestry visa these days, just a UK passport or you have to do your years? Just having Zim visiting tourist pages in my passport, immigration in UK gave me a hard time!

It's quite common for people who have a degree to get a job afterwards and stay through their employer. At least in my county, not sure about UK.

[Googly]

The general consensus is that there are around 800 000 black Zimbabweans in the UK. They play a very major role in our economy with how much money they send back here on a monthly basis. If you magically switched off that inflow of forex Zim would be in deep deep trouble, not that it isn't already, but it would be much worse. I'd very conservatively estimate around £50m gets sent back monthly.
Every single loophole to get in has been used and abused.
It's been so long now that I guess a process of naturalisation has taken place opening up further avenues for descendants from here. It's not just Zimbabweans, there's a huge number of Kenyans, Ghanaians, Nigerians, South Africans etc etc living in the UK. That's before you even start to consider Indians and the people from Pakistan (I don't even know what the correct term is)
You have to wonder how many more people can fit.

[TapsC2]

To be honest if he is any good and miraculously does wonders over the next 3 years there even at club level he will get picked up on that 2 year-graduate visa and we will never see him again. 1 strong club season and he is gone.

[Tinah09]

Granted Myers waa a prodigy at youth level, he got an opportunity to show his class in al test, ODI and T20 level against the international cricket behemoths that are Ireland and Scotland. .and he fell short. he didn't do anything at first class or international level (despite getting the opportunity to do so) to deserve all this remorse. We just need a good coach and build a team around Blessing, Ngarava, Madhevere, Shumba and co...and wish Myers, Murray and other England-hopefuls luck 9n their future endevours

[Googly]

https://www.espncricinfo.com/player/dion-myers-946517

Here are his stats, bear in mind he's 19 turning 20, hardly enough games to write him off as a bog standard FC player.
You want to build a team around 4 players, can you suggest some other back up players to support the world class guys you've mentioned?

[Googly]

https://www.espncricinfo.com/player/wes ... ere-938959

Here are Madhevere's stats. I'm struggling to see a big difference.

[Googly]

DM has the capacity to become a quality international batsman in my opinion, he's damned good.
Your attitude of - if he wants to go then fuck him, is one of the very reasons our cricket is in the position it's in.
First and foremost we need these young guys in our FC, List A, T20 and club system because without strengthening our domestic cricket we cannot hope to improve our national side. Our domestic cricket is full of journeyman cricketers that wouldn't make another FC system on the planet and they need to be replaced by young, talented and dynamic players.
If you think we are in the ascendancy because we've got Blessing, Ngarava, Milton and Wes I think you're in for a rude awakening. Unless these touring sides that are due manage to dodge their commitments we will get some cricket and will be able to reconvene.

[Tinah09]

I don't think anyone will disagree that he has/had great potential. But the economy/ZC might have played a role in his departure. Its one thing if players leave to get a bigger pay day playing county cricket (Ervine S, Taylor, Muzarabani etc). But leaving an international cricket career to be a full time uni student is bizare

[Googly]

Again I don't agree. It's an absolute indictment on ZC that they are prepared to let the very few really talented guys we have slip through their fingers. It shows that they feel secure in their full member status, which will probably prove to be a multi million dollar miscalculation.

The economy is only a part excuse. We get USD hard cash from ICC. We've lost out on corporate sponsorship mostly because of lack of faith in ZC and only partly because times are hard. There are still plenty of big corporates making a lot of money here.

Initially we thought it was mostly an anti-white thing, which was partly true, but of late a few uber talented young black guys have also turned their backs.

Maybe they're banking on being able to dangle a BT/Jarvis-like deal to a couple of players who may be doing well overseas if the shit really hits the fan or the more likely scenario is that they think our current crop will come good.

To me it indicates that a junior central contract (is there such a thing?) is not that good. Certainly a franchise contract is pretty shit. ZC console themselves by saying "well it's pretty damned fine by Zim standards, be grateful" and therein lies the problem. It also may indicate that these guys are not confident of ZC's future.
Imagine foregoing a University option and then in two or three years time we get downgraded to Associate and our ICC allocation gets further reduced. Now that would be a monumental blunder for a youngster turning his back on tertiary education.
The obvious solution is online education, made even easier these days by this covid debacle, yet they choose not to.
The reason is simple- the money currently on offer doesn't justify missing out on a full university experience.

Here's another harsh reality- the member nations don't want to play us and that will never change again. They will only do so if made to and may still find an excuse not to. They are the only opportunity we have of making money. We are probably at the point where some Associates are losing interest and they certainly don't generate revenues, they cost money.

That leaves us having to qualify for World Cups and playing as few costly Tests as humanly possible.