ESPNCRICINFO reports that Gary Ballance has retired from all cricket - does anybody know details, what happened ?

[tej_27]

Article only says international cricket ..does that mean he is keen or can resume his English county career ?

[TapsC2]

How someone who has lived most of his life in Zim can say he is homesick for a foreign land after 3 months is shocking to me. Don't his parents and brothers live here? For his wife to make him go back to a place where he always be viewed as a racist after just 3 months.

It doesn't add up, you would think his one goal would have been to qualify for the World Cup and pull the middle finger to England by a scoring a century against them in India. Whatever the case is he has proven all his haters and doubters right.

He has also closed the doors for some people who might not do the same. For me personally this is the exact reason why they should never ever bring back Muyeye specifically. No matter what happens. Welch and Byrom are different cases. Welch especially. Muyeye will give us problems

[secretzimbo]

.

I just see this as ZC going to start to refuse to let these kinds of players return.

‘Refuse’ to ‘let’ ? To their credit ZC went out of their way to enable it, with some significant effort, and paid a vast amount of money to make it happen.

[secretzimbo]

Ya what a very strange thing to say. Its not even a question of having to look at a batter and go - wow this guy is different gravy! You just have to look at his numbers, pre and post joining Zim.
But it is very possible that the hierarchy will believe that we have enough in the tank without Ballance, Ervine, Williams and Raza. This Naviq fellow could make an early appearance.
The withdrawal of Ballance from the qualifiers guarantees an early exit.
It loses Dave Houghton some valuable points with the family mafia and of course there will be some sort of racial undertone, we've come to expect that.... and it's pre-election and post Al Jazeera.
The future suddenly looks not so bright and I fear we may see an obstinate Mafia again. Perhaps the highlight of the year will be the T10 featuring Hammy and Elton. I see a major salary increase in their future and a why not give ourselves another little picker upper whilst we're at it. Range Rovers all round, all is not lost, lads.

Probably an over reaction mate But you never know lol

[Yorker]

Article only says international cricket ..does that mean he is keen or can resume his English county career ?

All forms of professional cricket.

[zimbos_05]

‘Refuse’ to ‘let’ ? To their credit ZC went out of their way to enable it, with some significant effort, and paid a vast amount of money to make it happen.

I didn't dismiss that. Yes, they did a lot to enable it, but he has retired. Remember the debacle after we failed to qualify with BT and there were all those voices that we wasted money bringing him back and he couldn't get us over the line. So it's an accumulation. At some point I worry that ZC will just say that bringing back players is pointless if they keep shitting on us like that.

I didn't say anything about them not having done a good job to bring back Gary.

[Donald]

Blessing being the notable exception

[jaybro]

Wow what a blow indeed!!!

I agree there could be more too it, but also it’s just as likely he’s actually telling the truth, his heart wasn’t in it and he’s decided to walk away.

If his wife was homesick, but he was committed I’d say he could have easily hung around for the qualifiers and possibly WC, so I’m sort of ruling that out myself.

Such a shame but I’m not giving up on qualification, I’ve said it many times the reason we missed out last time is because we only had 2 players in form at the CWCQ. If we have everyone contributing then I’m confident we can give it a good crack.

The saying really rings true, ‘We can’t have nice things’

[sloandog]

Is Naviq even qualified to play for Zimbabwe

[secretzimbo]

Is Naviq even qualified to play for Zimbabwe

It’s Zim. Anything is possible