Tinah09 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 12, 2022 11:50 pm
Googly wrote: ↑Wed Jan 12, 2022 6:41 pm
There are many of this caliber of player in these county squads, really solid cricketers that know their games, have 3 scoring shots and rock solid defence. They won't take the game away from you in a few overs, like the real gun guys can, but they'll make solid runs. I'm not meaning him specifically because I haven't seen him put the hammer down, he was starting to, but then played his only stupid shot, I'm sure he can change gears successfully. I don't know where he usually bats either, he looks like an opener for sure. Although that turned out to be a nearly a run a ball hundred it was actually a very conservative innings, he got a few real buffet balls that he was quite conservative with and I didn't see any shots down the ground which is usually a good indication of a confident bat, but I'm sure he wanted his hundred and needs some good stats to show his County, plus he clearly knew he was the only proper batsman in the side. If there was ever an easy hundred on offer this was it.
These counties are brutal, they have their favourites that can fuck up many times and continue to get picked and if you're not one of them you need to make it count if you get a start. I'll be following him this coming season, I like the way he sets up shop.
As much as I hate to admit it. You are right, the gulf in class is obvious, Compton would be by far our best batsmen if he played for Zim...does he play for a 2nd team in the counties? if so, damn, we aren't good enough to play England and other top sides. Will we ever be competitive with the way things are going??
There I am trying to bait you and you roll over? That takes the fun right out of it.
As I said he's one of many guys that's one good innings away from being a regular first team player. He'll probably go back to his team waving his stats, they'll give him two April red ball games (batters are sitting ducks) and he'll get shunted back down to Two's, they're nasty!!
He did nothing special in that innings except stick to his game plan and play solid conservative cricket. He's compact and organised. He waited for them to bowl at him and he picked them off quietly and easily. The Pom seamers would have got him coming forward on 4th and 5th stump, he likes back foot and working it to leg, that was clear as day. I don't think he hit anything thru covers the whole innings. That's when the bowlers aren't thinking. Game plans at this level are simple, work the singles, these guys will bowl you at least a 4 ball an over, get 60% of those to the boundary and you're going at 6's without breaking a sweat. I saw both teams were on 35 after 10, which for this standard of bowling was a slow start
Surrey would have posted 350 plus yesterday (and it was only 40 overs) against either attack and rolled them for under 120. I'm not baiting you, I'm just telling you some very depressing facts. The finest plunderer of loose bowling, Sam Curran, would make a double hundred
Taking our national players out of the mix and being left with what we saw yesterday is horrible to see. That's why any A sides we've ever had are equally depressing, and why they pack those sides with national players- it's to hide the complete lack of depth we have.
You can't have a 3 team franchise, that would be a delightful excuse by ZC to play 5 games a year. The bare minimum required for a pro is 40, I reckon. We're not getting quality or quantity.
I'd take quantity over quality if I had a choice. We're safe until 2027 so nothing will change. It will take a major overhaul to get something decent going, which will cost money, which ZC won't spend. The very least they should do is make it feasible for a couple of youngsters to take 2 years out and make a living and see how they go.
These current u19's are a good example. So far they've done poorly and may well continue in that vein, and they're not all to blame, but half a dozen of those guys are way better than most of the franchise guys not in the National side right now. Do you hope they'll spend the next two years at $300 a month for the playing season (4 months) or do you just wave good bye to them?
Let me be very very clear about this, no grey areas, no spurious doomsday claims - this is the last half decent batch we are ever going to see. Of course there will always be one or two guys coming through, but there will be no team around them, this is the last "big" group of youngsters.
I literally don't know one Zim based 15, 16 or 17 year old that can bat, let alone has a couple of hundreds under his belt against the shittest bowling you've ever seen. I don't mind being cussed about whatever, but this schoolboy stuff I know well. Wait and see. If ZC don't get this right and snare a few of these guys there's going to be a massive gap and shortage of players, way worse than we are seeing now.
We will end up with Nyumbu bowling from a wheelchair.