Zimbabwe vs South Africa / 1st T20 / Tri-Series / Harare

[tawac]

You dont have to have Gwandu or Evans, you can have Gwandu AND Evans!
There's a lot to be said for having 4 seamers at all times.
Until someone absolutely nails down that specialist spinner berth its almost worth just bowling seam.
Everyone one of our spinners has at least one drag down or loose delivery every over. It was the seamers thst did the damage yesterday for us and the spinners were shite.
In a perfect world Evans would play next game ahead of Wellie. Simple no-brainer swap.

With Burl there do we really need Masekesa in the squad as well. To imagine he hasn't even played a single T20 game how does he even find his way into the squad. Spin back up perhaps but with no T20 experience whatsoever.

[Pat_Bee]

There's a lot to be said for having 4 seamers at all times.

Old salamander’s pr is working a treat it seems

[Googly]

The most obvious question marks in that squad are
Masekesa, Tsiga and Nyamhuri
Nyamhuri's stats are really poor. He's got zip, swing and he's a leftie. No doubting his potential but he's their poster boy for ignoring stats. I dont have a problem with it if he had a lot more control. Should there be an injury Maphosa should be ahead of him, who's already in the squad. Even if they insist on by-passing Evans I'd have Chivanga ahead of Nyamhuri, hes bowling well.
Tsiga is the back-up keeper, but have a keeper that can bat T20, thats Maru for me.
Masekesa panics if batters go after him atm. He's a poor selection for this format.
There should be 3 different squad selections right there.

[Googly]

Dunno if you've been following the disastrous West Indies second innings.
Having to face Starc, Cummins, Hazelwood and Boland with a pink ball bowling as they did has to be about the toughest ask for any batting line-up. That WI bowling attack is hectic as well, they rolled Aus for 140 and actually gave themselves a chance. Not sure why the pink ball is so tricky, but it is.
Starc got his fifer in 4 overs, a world record.

Anyway theyre having a crisis meeting and including guys like Lara and Lloyd to discuss the way forward. I see Darren Sammy is the coach and only selector. He's going to be facing some uncomfortable question and answer time.

[Googly]

Raza saying that the kids want to sit in the change room with him and pick his brains is a strange choice of words.
We dont want kids in the team, we want fighting men that have figured out a few things for themselves and not have to be spoon fed for the 25th year in a row. You cant play with a million things swimming in your head either. At the end of the day the player at this level has to have most of his game intact and cherry pick what he thinks will work for him.
They don't necessarily have to rely on Raza. If Sammonds, Digger, Williams, Ervine etc can't also drop gems then we are in trouble.
The guys that played in those T10's would have learnt some stuff, but of course ZC engineered the wrong guys hoping for miracles and being spiteful at the same time. What a stand-up bunch we have. Its sabotage really.

[Googly]

If Richie is really asking Raza how Boult swings the ball we're in deep shit Someone should just ask him directly
He also said Burl and Musekiwa did well at the back end. They did ok. Musekiwa held up his end with a run a ball 9.
That's not finishing, that's surviving. Once again, we're not winning so put him one ahead of Raza and let him get time in the middle. A death game in the qualifiers or if we make the WC is not a time to find out that Musekiwa hasn't got the game. I can tell you with absolute certainty that he currently doesnt, has some potential for sure, but once again he's a dot, dot, dot, 4 guy at the moment, as are most of our batters.
Its uber tough to get good balls away. Raza himself is kept quiet at this level with good bowling.
My line-up makes Raza the finisher actually.

[TapsC2]

Dunno if you've been following the disastrous West Indies second innings.
Having to face Starc, Cummins, Hazelwood and Boland with a pink ball bowling as they did has to be about the toughest ask for any batting line-up. That WI bowling attack is hectic as well, they rolled Aus for 140 and actually gave themselves a chance. Not sure why the pink ball is so tricky, but it is.
Starc got his fifer in 4 overs, a world record.

Anyway theyre having a crisis meeting and including guys like Lara and Lloyd to discuss the way forward. I see Darren Sammy is the coach and only selector. He's going to be facing some uncomfortable question and answer time.

And here I was asking for us to prepare fiery pitches over flat ones. We would surely set a similar record at one point as well. It's a tough one. We barely lasted 2 days with the pink ball

[TapsC2]

If we struggle against Sri Lanka as well I'm certain they won't risk a young squad in the qualifiers.

[Googly]

I got sidetracked- back to the WI crisis meeting involving outsiders. Do we need one?
Their crisis meeting I would assume hinges on selections.
Theyve got two of the best attending it.
Obviously its not going to happen here, but we could assemble a couple of legit guys that would put the selectors feet to the fire and ask the right questions.

Remember when we had the comp to find fast bowling talent? Here's a good one as well because maybe there's a finisher lurking in the Gwanda nets that's been overlooked-
Put a bowling machine on a good middle stump length at 145 and assemble the wannabe's to face 3 overs and see who can manoever the ball and/or bomb them. Maybe, just maybe there's someone out in the bush that can do it...or right here in Harare under their noses

[Googly]

Stick Raza and our WC squad in there as well so we can compare. Televise it so the smoke and mirrors are finished forever. Give them areas to hit as well. This we want a ramp, this we want a scoop, this we want a slap over extra, over the bowler, over cow etc. A 360 challenge.
Best 7 get to go to the qualifiers.