zimbos_05 wrote: ↑Sun Nov 14, 2021 9:40 am
secretzimbo wrote: ↑Sat Nov 13, 2021 9:57 pm
Think you are being ridiculously harsh....
Until about two months ago they weren't even paid! Theres only a small handful of domestic women's games each year, and almost no schools play it. It's frankly remarkable that we have a team at all, considering women's cricket barely existed until earlier this year I think they are doing pretty well. They are very new to this level of competition.
If you missed it, they won their first ever ODI in history last month beating Ireland. Bangladesh are a clear step up and ranked higher - 8th in the world. Our ladies don't even have a ranking yet, being so new to ODI cricket.
I didn't miss anything. I caught their first ODI win. I get that they don't have as much as the men, but they are not just new to this this year. They have also been in camps quite often.
I don't expect them to win every game, but you do expect to see a little progress, that is all. Even if it is just progress in the form of their line and length or being able to last whilst batting. Improvement in the basic things.
I don't blame them. Like I said, I don't know if its a coaching or skills thing, but when you consider the gulf from other teams, it almost seems like whoever is in charge just puts them out on the field and hopes for the best. It's not fair on the girls.
Your criticism should have come 3-4 months ago, when it would have been well placed.
They barely played at all during Covid. Even the attempted Pakistan series was abandoned. Over the past two years they haven't been paid a penny and I would guess several members of the squad may well have had stretches of weeks/maybe even several months of not touching a cricket ball in that period, at any level. Until recently these really are amateur cricketers.
The ICC audited its full member nations commitments to women's cricket earlier this year. It found Zimbabwe was the worst of all but Afghanistan for its distribution of funding and resources. Giving the qualifier to Zim was a sop by the ICC in exchange for ZC committing to sorting out its women's team. It's early days. The women's team has been almost defunct at times.
I think you need to give them quite a bit longer before judging progress. It won't happen overnight.
I mean, bowled out for 48 in the first match and then 2-2 in the first over yesterday. They actually did well to bat as long as they did and the tail did well to stretch the innings out. That's an improvement. I'm sure they are learning lots.
Maybe I'm biased, I know the women's coach Adam Chifo pretty well. I just think we need to give them more time to make that progress. Hopefully when Nkomo is back and Mayers gets back up to speed they will be able to be fairly competitive in the actual qualifier and pick up a couple of W's.