Zimbabwe vs NZ| 4th T20| Harare 24 July 2025

[Googly]

You'd need to know exactly what he's being told to do by Frank and David before you make that call

[Googly]

I see the comments about everyone losing interest in T20 in particular and that we should be demoted because we are so shit. Then further comments about try Shumba, try Kaia etc etc.

Why lose hope in our B team? Theyve done ok all things considered. They may get us thru the qualifiers if Uganda has a bad day.

Let's put our best team on the park and see how they go.

[Googly]

Had we held them to 150-160 and we may have, had we not dropped Seifert, that would have been remotely achievable if we'd had a better team on the park. Chasing 190 on a tricky pitch with this team was too big an ask, even with our best team actually.
One of the main reasons is we havent assembled our best team yet and even if we did this tomorrow we've left it waaay too late because they've been denied vital exposure to big teams for a long time. Obviously part of our best team either hasn't been given the all clear to play or theyre playing elsewhere so its a bit of a moot point.

ZC are banking on these guys getting us thru qualifiers. The euphoria of that (God willing it happens) will make their favorites world beaters again and they'll be going to WC with this team to properly crash and burn.

Just slowing down for a couple of overs chasing anything over 150 and the rate gets away from you. That is why we cant win unless theres a procession of decent batters all the way down to 8, so the guys can play with some freedom.
The likelihood of heroics from Raza are slim. This is the upper limit of his ability. These guys can not only keep him quiet but can get him out. If you want to see if he's a bit one dimensional or not let him bat 1-3 at this level. He will really struggle, hes more a finisher and ideally should be coming in after the 12th or so. We need guys to get us that far at a decent rate.

Dion had a great first over, but got bogged down immediately thereafter unfortunately. I'd sacrificed a chicken for him Getting those bowlers away is a tough ask for even the best T20 batters, theyre damned good. We are especially bad against quality spin though. Dion has some flaws, that can be improved easily. He's got a huge work ethic, understands exactly whats happening as well. Sounds silly, but some of our guys dont.

I'm sorry but I have to mention Clive. He's the least likely to succeed at this level. I hate picking on players but he's not up for this. He's a good guy and all and its nothing personal. He might smack some associates around occasionally because he's far from shit, but this is the top tier. Only the best guys stand a chance here. He looks hopelessly out of place. The really poor part of all of this is how many opportunites he's had that could have gone to someone with a higher ceiling.

Munyonga got a flattering score because they were just floating them up because they could afford to and waiting for him to mis-cue. He looked ok though, he can bomb them, but he's very much work in progress. He really doesn't move his feet against spin.

Musekiwa is also decent. Really talented bloke actually, considering he was never really an out and out batter. He's an absolute gun outfielder. Astonishing. He was quite happy to dink it around and not really take them on because he felt the game was gone and he needed a personal score. The game was gone. I've seen the odd game where 100 off 50 has been chased. Should he and Toni have tried? I'd like to have seen them try because we really need to know. Well we know, but we need to see.
It keeps mattering how much we lose by and its throwing out the wrong picture because they've both done enuf to keep getting picked, which weirdly is actually a problem in the greater scheme of things because we have better combos waiting. Musekiwa should definitely go up the order in domestic, he's got a lot of good things going for him.

Wes- ya in their absolute desperation to find a generational gem theyve blown his head. They picked the right guy in that technically he's one of the few that's got the game for this level, at least they got that part right.
He's not a big enuf hitter to open, nor to finish. In the absence of better options there's a role for him at 4, but he's not part of the best team we can roll out.

Is there a presser out yet with some poor schmuck taking the positives or Raza apologising about his own personal performance?

[Pat_Bee]

He was totally perplexed by that stone dead lbw

[Pat_Bee]

Yeah we got to the last World Cup on good vibes after Houghton took over from Rajput and raz dawg having a golden winter.

By 2023 it had soured choked in a very winnable game against Scotland and still had PTSD six months later against Uganda been downhill since.

Apart from Bennett these are the same guys who’ve failed twice and they’ve all got worse only thing going for us is that the qualifier is two groups and Namibia and Uganda aren’t both in ours

Putting a lot of faith in BT, a lot. Can’t say I’m optimistic at all.

[CholeZimbo]

Which AI are u using?
Thats a pretty good synopsis.

Baically copied my commit into chatGPT and asked it to refine it.

[Googly]

I cant find any post match clips from captains and coaches. Anyone know where I can find them?

[secretzimbo]

The incessant bullshit discourse about stats on social media needs to end. It’s nonsense. It’s obviously nonsense from Frank and always spun to suit his agenda, but it’s just as bad from the so-called anti-ZC accounts. Not sure why they are trying to play Frank and go at their own game, it’s basically a losing battle.

They also spin these stats to suit agendas, quoting some specific run of form in an arbitrary time period from a specific domestic competition to claim someone should or shouldnt be in the side is largely bullshit, sorry. I almost never see anybody on social media with a reasoned opinion or point at all recently. Thank god for some of the members on ZCF.

Obviously stats tell part of the story and are important to an extent, and you need to encourage good stats for various reasons not least because we need people to put the effort in to domestic competitions to make it stronger.

But here’s a novel approach; why not appoint a team of selectors and a team of coaches who have some cricketing nous and some ability to just choose 11 good cricketers that can win a match?

Sometimes that will be 11 players who average 80 in whatever competition but sometimes that might be some guys who have struggled for 8 days of our T20 competition but who, maybe just maybe, have been identified as having the good to operate at the next level?

England don’t give a shit about stats when selecting. Neither do India. Probably other teams don’t.

[Andy31]

It almost becomes spam with the stats. That and every player doing bad is from Taka. Ie Clive

[Googly]

The problem is assembling the team of selectors with nous.
That's never going to happen. I cant think of any theyd approve of. The existing problem is mostly bias.
What is truly bizarre is Cremer and BT coming back into the fold. BT I understand, but theyre saying maybe one more white guy and thats it. My point is why stop at that?
Theyre conceding theres a problem and appear to be willing to make a change, but it's a minor one and theyre praying two guys will stem the blood flow. And its not two more white guys, at least one white guy is going to make way for them.

They cant make us win with a small bandage. Maybe they dont want to win? Maybe they want to not lose as badly?