T20 Rebuild

[sam_ahm]

Good thread this, and I'm looking at it from an overall perspective of blooding in more youngsters.

I think Zimbabwe missed a trick by never trying Zhuwao in T20s, it's too late now but he should have played some T20s. One other guy I thought was a good T20 player was Solomon Mire, he could hit and it's very sad that he left the scene early. One man who was equally good in all formats was Brendan Taylor of course... I love Sikki but he is no where near the class of Taylor.

Anyways coming to the present, I think what we need is more of A tours and more game time for all the upcoming cricketers to help them develop. Just playing the domestics won't help.

[zimbos_05]

If we are talking about getting players back, it suprises me that we don't want to throw the kitchen sink at Cartwright.

I'd allow him to keep playing domestic in Aus whilst not on international duty.

[Googly]

I think the Cartwright Ballance discussion that we had on here was a daydream. Firstly they're probably not available.
If ZC dangled a big enuf carrot they would be, money talks, but there's problems with that idea.
It doesn't guarantee we start winning, but it probably makes us more competitive.
The statement it makes is that we don't have the players locally or anyone coming through, which is not a good look. We are supposed to have the structures and pathways in place and that's an admission of failure. We don't know how important that is. The Dutch load their team with people that play elsewhere, but they don't receive the money we do.
We can always blame the economy and sanctions on 5 people, but will that wash? Maybe its not important and as long as we look a decent side and are more competitive it's all that counts. This next U19 team is going to show where we are really at, and it's not good.
Once again we tried it before with BT and Jarvis and it didn't really work out.

I think that anyone who believes we can turn it around with our current players is being very optimistic.
We're going into a 50 over period now. Our local comp is done and dusted after 9 games and in about a month and we're about to play 4 day stuff so is that the prep for 50 over finished? They should be rethinking that because they need to play a lot more. There's more crossover between T20 and 50 over than 4 day and 50 over. There's no urgency required in 4 day stuff whatsoever and it's where our problems lie.

Our honeymoon with an amazing winning streak in the qualifiers is over, aside from the Pakistan win we looked terrible. As promising as our bowling looks the difference in skill level between us and the top teams in this dept is glaring. The Afghans are a good benchmark, they're now way ahead in the bowling dept.
I'm not sure how well ZC understand the hole we are in and my guess is they will now have unrealistic expectations from the coaches.
Afghanistan are coming shortly. Let's hope we do well, let's hope someone other than Raza puts their hand up.

[sam_ahm]

We will see Googly, back in June when Tony Ura was smashing it all over the park, I was for a moment, thinking that another World Cup is gone. Yet here we are, coming off from the most successful T20 WC campaign till date.

Talking of 50 overs, the team's last three series saw an ODI series win over Bangladesh an ODI win over Australia in Australia, and a good fight given to India.

Who thought this in May after the series loss to Namibia and a disastrous A tour to Nepal?

So I will just wait and see, and hope. Having supported this team in the darkest of times, I think this time we are far better off.

[Kriterion_BD]

We will see Googly, back in June when Tony Ura was smashing it all over the park, I was for a moment, thinking that another World Cup is gone. Yet here we are, coming off from the most successful T20 WC campaign till date.

Talking of 50 overs, the team's last three series saw an ODI series win over Bangladesh an ODI win over Australia in Australia, and a good fight given to India.

Who thought this in May after the series loss to Namibia and a disastrous A tour to Nepal?

So I will just wait and see, and hope. Having supported this team in the darkest of times, I think this time we are far better off.

It's all relative to what your baseline expectations and goals are. Zimbabwe certainly aren't as bad as they were in their darkest era. Not sure when their best period was since 2004 (maybe 2011-13 when they came to Tests).

It's all about making small incremental progress.

Focus should be on ODI cricket.

My hope and gut feeling is that ODI cricket will still remain very important as far as the ICC is concerned. Batemans will probably fall by the wayside, but the World Cup + Champions Trophy still brings in a shit load of money for the ICC and the full members. T20 franchise cricket will continue to grow, at the expense of bilateral ODIs. The WTC will ensure the top 9 continue playing a decent to healthy amount of Tests. Teams like NZ, WI, and SL will probably never play a 3 match Test series ever again, but will still keep playing Tests due to the WTC - which is a good thing.

The ICC will probably have to bring back the Test fund to ensure ZIM/AFG/IRE play at least 3-4 Tests a year.

[secretzimbo]

Focus should be on ODI cricket.

I disagree.

- After the 2023 WC you are going to see a lot of knives out for ODI cricket from leading nation and players. Wait and see.

- The loss of the Super League hurts us majorly - it's now largely a pointless format for Zimbabwe when you consider the next WC is 10 teams and our chances of qualifying are very small.

- The T20WC is expanding, qualification going forward is (should be) very straight-forward, theres a T20WC every 2 years. We have a way better chance of consistently being at the big dance in T20 than 50-over cricket.

- None of the players are bothered about being a good List A cricketer are they? The vast majority, including in Zim, want to crack the franchise circuit and a small handful want the prestige of Test cricket, but nobody grows up nowadays wanting to be a 50-over cricketer.

It's sad but it's true. It's third choice amongst the formats.

- Also T20 cricket is our worst current format - so of course it should be our focus going forward. And in T20 the margins are smaller. As a small country with fewer resources you've got a better percentage chance of pulling off big wins and upsets and doing well in T20's than you have in longer formats.

[Kriterion_BD]

I'm a fan of ODI cricket far more than T20 - this past T20 world cup was the first one I actually enjoyed (I've followed them all, bit not as closely as an ODI world cup). So my opinion may be biased.

Let me make my nuanced point. I think the ODI world cup and Champions Trophy will still exist simply because it brings more money than a T20 world cup. I don't think the ICC will just replace those ODI tourneys with additional T20 world cups, because having an annual WC cheapens it's prestige and/or value.

Individual players WILL definitely quit ODIs in favor of T20 franchises, citing the high workload. As a result bilateral ODIs will probably die off or become largely irrelevant. Bilateral, not World Cups.

Also the 2027 World Cup will be a 14 team event once again, so it would be foolish for ZC to assume the death of ODIs and ignore the format. Especially with qualifier tournaments looming.

[Googly]

Ed B shares that opinion and was surprised there were 2 50 over WC's that have been scheduled.
You have to wonder what the point of that 100 is, plus some of this T10.
We watch so much T20 these days that even if you're not a fan you become accustomed to it.
I'll be very bleak if 50 over dies out. The issue is that most countries can't afford to hold tests and certainly not 3 and 5 test series so I'm not convinced. Amongst the Big (?) however many have the luxury of affording tests I concur with the sentiment, but what about the lesser members and the associates? Will we just play each other in 50 over games and T20 and maybe a one off test? Will we see an elite split?

[zimbos_05]

The statement it makes is that we don't have the players locally or anyone coming through, which is not a good look. We are supposed to have the structures and pathways in place and that's an admission of failure. We don't know how important that is. The Dutch load their team with people that play elsewhere, but they don't receive the money we do.

We don't. We have proven that already. I don't care if it makes that statement, if we are able to get two quality players into our side then so be it, and until such a time as which we can improve our domestic game, we need to do what we can to be competetive.

The games against West Indies, Netherlands and India should be signs that we can't afford to be picky. We play 9 game ODI domestic seasons and 5 game T20s. That is nothing to get any player up to the standard.This doesn't even take into account the quality of coaching that these players are getting at the domestic level and the work they do out of season.

[zimbos_05]

I think Zimbabwe missed a trick by never trying Zhuwao in T20s, it's too late now but he should have played some T20s. One other guy I thought was a good T20 player was Solomon Mire, he could hit and it's very sad that he left the scene early. One man who was equally good in all formats was Brendan Taylor of course... I love Sikki but he is no where near the class of Taylor.

Zhuwao has played 7 T20 internationals for Zim. He has scored 48 runs at an average of 7 and a strike rate of 72. He is now 37 years old.

Mire played 9 but retired when Zim got banned by the ICC.

A lot of these players careers were lost due to incompetence from the board.