Professional County Club Select XI vs Zimbabwe | Men’s First Class Match - Only Tour Match | 15 May 2025 - 18 May 2025

[jw2]

Embarrassing defeat. Next week is going to be grim.

Glad I’m going on day 1 instead of day 3

Yes, disastrous. The English players basically are teens and early twenties still trying to gain regular places in their county teams - and we go down to them!

[TapsC2]

Embarrassing. We need stronger leadership from the senior guys. they are supposed to lead the way whilst the younger guys provide a solid supporting cast. Craig owes us big time. It's not just about runs, but also leadership without the bat..

Proactive captaincy is equally important in the longer format. When we lose sessions we lose badly. 100 runs with nothing happening or 4 wickets down for nothing. What I have seen since that first test in Ireland is that we have long phases of the game where we are on autopilot and nothing is happening. We will just be going through the phases. Either that or we completely collapse in 1 session. I think better leadership can help us in such situations

[Googly]

When you've got your bowlers spraying it all over the place I just feel the captain should be at mid off. The fact that he stays in slips would seem to indicate that the bowlers have a plan but are just not executing, but I'm not so sure.
I just get the impression all our guys are impatient and indisciplined and if they bowl some dots they cant help but try and make something happen and dont always have the accuracy to land whatever delivery theyre trying to. You need the captain to say- listen my guy, I'm telling you to bowl the channel, nothing else, let them chase something they shouldn't, bore them to death.
Victor really got some to hoop and needed to start them wider. I lost count of how many he gifted them on their pads or sent the keeper diving down leg. He was getting away swing as well and I dont think bowled enough of them. Its better to get that one wrong and its wide of off-stump, not that he should be anticipating getting it wrong.

Once again, for posterity, not picking Evans is just.....I don't even have a word for it. The guy has been successful in England for years. He's our most accurate seamer by miles and it's our main problem. He even came and bowled at our batters in the nets last week and tied them up.
I mean we're up against a team that can destroy us and embarass us in front of the world if it goes badly wrong and these guys still won't pick our strongest team. Think about a loss inside of 2 days and what repercussions that has. They can pull put one of the 100 previous speeches about Zimbabwe being in the rebuilding phase after colonialism I guess. Eeish but the small part of the world that still knows we play cricket has gotten very bored of that. I guess theyre hoping a jet lagged Raza will do the job of 3 people. That strategy works most times against Mozambique, but its not likely to against a big team.

One more observation- I'll guarantee ICC gave us a bucket load of cash for this test. We should have gotten there two weeks earlier and played two more warm up games. One is simply not enough. Someone filling their pockets there.

Who picked our opposition, as a matter of interest? Whatever that answer is will be highly embarrassing. Somebody set us a low bar to clear
Actually that bar wasn't that low. Doesn't matter what age those guys were or the fact that they're not established doesn't mean too much, they bowled bloody well and accurately.

[Googly]

I dunno if you listened to Campbell's discussion with Atherton? He confirmed there that our 20 million bongo dollar loan from Metro Bank with a 4 million a year real money interest repayment was easily settled due to the "vagaries of our exchange rate."

Shouldn't we be asking Bvute for those real usd interest payments back? He set himself up for life thru ZC. At the very least get the magnificent Country Club cricket facilities back.
They're probably worth just under a million and a lot more than that has been liberated over the years. That's an easy discussion- hand it over or we open a can of worms.

[sam_ahm]

Wtf? They lost to England U21s? Are you f***ing serious?

[Googly]

Well not England u21's
More like their B or C side. Some good players in there though.
Some very biased umpiring tipped the scales there.
Not excusing our poor bowling though.

[Pat_Bee]

Nah, apart from atherton’s lad and Mousley they were like players on the fringes of their county’s second XI sides

[Googly]

Don't forget the 17 year old Rew who may potentially be better than his older brother James.
That was a great knock of his.
The 14 year old Indian in IPL I take with a pinch of salt regarding his age, but this young Rew is the real deal, as his older brother.
I'm surprised they haven't debuted Rew Snr in this test.
Jamie Smith the current keeper batsman is a helluva player and looked set to cement that spot for the next 15 years and then suddenly along comes a guy who's potentially even better, less than a year later. Then theres the younger brother just behind him who's also a keeper batsman. A long way to go of course, but he could be even better.
They just keep producing great cricketers with slightly better pathways than those offered by ZC.

I see Ed Byrom sat out a game for Glamorgan. he hasn't had to do that too often in his career.

[Kriterion_BD]

When you've got your bowlers spraying it all over the place I just feel the captain should be at mid off. The fact that he stays in slips would seem to indicate that the bowlers have a plan but are just not executing, but I'm not so sure.
I just get the impression all our guys are impatient and indisciplined and if they bowl some dots they cant help but try and make something happen and dont always have the accuracy to land whatever delivery theyre trying to. You need the captain to say- listen my guy, I'm telling you to bowl the channel, nothing else, let them chase something they shouldn't, bore them to death.
Victor really got some to hoop and needed to start them wider. I lost count of how many he gifted them on their pads or sent the keeper diving down leg. He was getting away swing as well and I dont think bowled enough of them. Its better to get that one wrong and its wide of off-stump, not that he should be anticipating getting it wrong.

Once again, for posterity, not picking Evans is just.....I don't even have a word for it. The guy has been successful in England for years. He's our most accurate seamer by miles and it's our main problem. He even came and bowled at our batters in the nets last week and tied them up.
I mean we're up against a team that can destroy us and embarass us in front of the world if it goes badly wrong and these guys still won't pick our strongest team. Think about a loss inside of 2 days and what repercussions that has. They can pull put one of the 100 previous speeches about Zimbabwe being in the rebuilding phase after colonialism I guess. Eeish but the small part of the world that still knows we play cricket has gotten very bored of that. I guess theyre hoping a jet lagged Raza will do the job of 3 people. That strategy works most times against Mozambique, but its not likely to against a big team.

One more observation- I'll guarantee ICC gave us a bucket load of cash for this test. We should have gotten there two weeks earlier and played two more warm up games. One is simply not enough. Someone filling their pockets there.

Who picked our opposition, as a matter of interest? Whatever that answer is will be highly embarrassing. Somebody set us a low bar to clear
Actually that bar wasn't that low. Doesn't matter what age those guys were or the fact that they're not established doesn't mean too much, they bowled bloody well and accurately.

England just named their XI and it looks basically full strength. That being said, every touring side from West Indies to Sri Lanka wins a Test in England, so Zimbabwe are certainly in with a shout. They'd have no chance if there was a second Test in the series, but a first or one-off, you'd almost say the odds are even stevens, given England's record at home.

[Andy31]

Regardless of the praccy match result.

I'm still bloody excited for the test match.

Out of the bigger playing nations. England i feel is always the closest to a batting collapse.

I feel the bottom test nations will also be wanting Zim to do well here.
Competitive 4 day tests with the bigger nations should bring in more money with less cost.