Glamorgan and Durham to tour Zimbabwe

[Googly]

Here's another problem-
Once you're in the national squad you're facing the best bowlers, throwers, best coaching, more intense sessions etc etc. How does a guy not there now break into it? He's not getting the same quality preparation, so it's doubly difficult to step up.
Any guy being sent down now is better prepared to do well in domestic and potentially goes straight back up.

[Donald]

Here's another problem-
Once you're in the national squad you're facing the best bowlers, throwers, best coaching, more intense sessions etc etc. How does a guy not there now break into it? He's not getting the same quality preparation, so it's doubly difficult to step up.
Any guy being sent down now is better prepared to do well in domestic and potentially goes straight back up.

In Houghton we trust as you have previously said .
Sure things arent perfect and we have a long way to go but this time last year did anyone think we could beat bangladesh in series (Twice) Qualify for world cup and super 12s and beat australia and pakistan.
It has been a truimphant year. The loss to the counties has brought some perspective but we are on right path.

[Googly]

DH has gotten the national side to play with clearer heads, he's been ably assisted by Raza having the year of his life and he's managed to get Ballance.
I'm sure his presence has ensured that we play more internationals and the domestic season has gone without the customary hiccups.
ZC have made sure the club season has gone remarkably well, there's a Div 2 and they've introduced the NPL.
Actually the NPL shouldn't be necessary if everyone played the club stuff, but they've given it some bling and insisted that all the franchise players play in it, but anyway its good in that there are more games and it is a better standard.

What has not changed is that the general standard of our domestic cricket is below par. Its not bad, but its not producing the depth. The Counties have shown that we have about 4 or 5 bowlers that are of a similar standard and unfortunately only about 4 batters. The others struggle.

Our official season is wrapping up and everyone, barring the national side is about to take the foot off the pedal for the next 5 months. That's Groundhog day.

We can't get ALL the franchise teams up to County level, they say there isn't the money, but we can and MUST get an A side up to speed. It must be the immediate short term goal. They should select a High Performance squad and they too need a year round deal so they improve significantly by this time next year. There needs to be 12 guys vying for spots in the national side who have worked through winter under good guidance. We need 2 teams capable of giving these county sides a decent game, not one. That's an imperative step if we are to progress.
Take Raza out the equation and we'd have failed.
We've seen the arrival of Kaia, the appearance of Ballance and the significant improvement of Burl. That's offset by the disappointing performances of the "next generation". If you weigh it up we're in more trouble now than last year. We need replacements urgently.

If they want us to make real progress in the shortest space of time this is the cheapest and easiest way.
If they want to look longer term we need to start age group tours for our best juniors, by the time they get to u19 it's way too late to produce a good cricketer and yet they spend a lot of money every year on these guys. It's almost a waste.

If they want the 20 year picture then do the grass roots thing, but without excellence at national and A cricket then all you're going to get is grass. We don't need grass, we need trees.

[Donald]

Sikander is our very own babar azam. I guess if you took just him out of the pakistan side they would struggle for a bit on the batting side for a while.
Sikander was not getting anywhere near these weight of runs under that Rajput guy. Which maybe shows he was unhappy and not in best place mentally. I believe someone said on the forum that there was a big blow out between rajput and raza before the scottish tour and H Masakadza had to fly out and smooth things over.
So the fact we now have Houghton and Raza seems to be enjoying his cricket has been a blessing for everyone as he almost single handedly demolished bangladesh and got us into the super 12s

[secretzimbo]

Raza despised the guy. He was key in the cretin finally getting fired

[TapsC2]

I think the problem starts in schools who play 12 weeks of cricket a year. I don't know what ZC can do about that but it's a real problem .it's showing badly with the girls.. they probably have only been playing 12 weeks a year from age 16 onwards.

I agree with the high performance contracts especially during those 5 inactive months. They used to send guys to Australia etc back in the day

[secretzimbo]

I think the problem starts in schools who play 12 weeks of cricket a year. I don't know what ZC can do about that but it's a real problem .it's showing badly with the girls.. they probably have only been playing 12 weeks a year from age 16 onwards.

I agree with the high performance contracts especially during those 5 inactive months. They used to send guys to Australia etc back in the day

It’s not just how much cricket the schools play, but also the number of schools that play. It’s pleasing to see a few extra schools playing cricket this year but ultimately the odds of producing a serious pipeline of international-level talent from just 200 or so regular cricket playing kids are very long.
If that number became 1,000 kids then we’d have a bit more of a chance.
As with everything in the country though, no one does anything unless it’s paid for. The only way we are going to resurrect cricket in say another dozen schools is if ZC pay for their field to be renovated, pay for a load of kit and pay for a coach.

ZC has plenty of cash and wastes plenty too. But it can’t be expected to fund absolutely everything directly. It’s the same problem with club cricket.

[secretzimbo]

If they want the 20 year picture then do the grass roots thing, but without excellence at national and A cricket then all you're going to get is grass. We don't need grass, we need trees.

I was chatting to an old fella at the Ireland series about the grassroots Vs high performance thing. As he said, it's a bit like the chicken and the egg. You need the grassroots to ensure a strong future, but equally a strong and successful national team breeds participation at lower levels. Look at the past 12 months - we win a few matches and suddenly the country is interested in cricket again.

In truth ZC have a responsibility to both, that's their remit and that's what their ICC funding is for - the whole game in the country at all levels. It's much easier to organise some of these random 'leagues' in various provinces, put them on the app and then come election time point to how much 'growth' there is and how much they've done.

The high performance stuff? That's much harder to do and much harder to get right.

It's quite nice that the 'Lions' side was in the T20 stuff, but it' a bit half hearted. It was billed as an 'academy' side but it had some random players. It had some U23's, some U19's, some random players from the Harare league and a few franchise rejects. I think Chigumbura is involved, but I thought his own private 'academy' had gone bankrupt (again)? So is it ZC-controlled? Is it an 'academy' at all, or jut a pick-up side that got together for 1-week and now it's disbanded?

[secretzimbo]

If they want the 20 year picture then do the grass roots thing, but without excellence at national and A cricket then all you're going to get is grass. We don't need grass, we need trees.

I was chatting to an old fella at the Ireland series about the grassroots Vs high performance thing. As he said, it's a bit like the chicken and the egg. You need the grassroots to ensure a strong future, but equally a strong and successful national team breeds participation at lower levels. Look at the past 12 months - we win a few matches and suddenly the country is interested in cricket again.

In truth ZC have a responsibility to both, that's their remit and that's what their ICC funding is for - the whole game in the country at all levels. It's much easier to organise some of these random 'leagues' in various provinces, put them on the app and then come election time point to how much 'growth' there is and how much they've done.

The high performance stuff? That's much harder to do and much harder to get right.

It's quite nice that the 'Lions' side was in the T20 stuff, but it' a bit half hearted. It was billed as an 'academy' side but it had some random players. It had some U23's, some U19's, some random players from the Harare league and a few franchise rejects. I think Chigumbura is involved, but I thought his own private 'academy' had gone bankrupt (again)? So is it ZC-controlled? Is it an 'academy' at all, or jut a pick-up side that got together for 1-week and now it's disbanded?

Oh just to add to this, we are sending a 'A' squad to India after the Dutch series. They are going to that same academy place that the u19's, u23's and the women went to last year. I think actually Chigumbura is working there now. Not sure. He's involved somehow anyway.
Looks like decent facilities but no idea what the level of coaching or opposition or local players is like.

[Googly]

We need our own well run, well staffed academy right here.
It needs the second best lot of players in it. When they're playing franchise the academy can then help other promising guys that aren't making the franchise sides or schoolboys.

The India trips are good experience. I wonder how much that costs