Zimbabwe vs New Zealand | Test Series | Second Test | 07 August 2025 - 11 August 2025

[CholeZimbo]

Drink some water Secret

Story for another day. But yeah, been following this team since 2001 and this performance hurts. We faced a world class team and we were found out. Simple

[zimbos_05]

The top 6 is the top 6 everyone would have picked and they are white and they are old and they couldn’t even muster 250 runs aggregate in two separate attempts.


There isn’t materially a better more talented top 6 than this. This is fucking it. This is the best we have to offer.

It’s entirely downhill from here.

Don’t blame the players and tbh don’t even blame the fucking selectors.

Whilst you are not entirely wrong, who then are you blaming for this rot? It's all well and good to say that no matter who we select, we would be shit, even if it is our "best possible 11, all white players", but what is the solution?

You can't be happy to witness what we are witnessing. The other countries are definitely thinking twice about playing us now. Mukhulani has spoken a big game about all the improvement, and the ICC keep giving him higher and higher positions, but what is exactly the solution you are suggesting here.

[secretzimbo]

The top 6 is the top 6 everyone would have picked and they are white and they are old and they couldn’t even muster 250 runs aggregate in two separate attempts.


There isn’t materially a better more talented top 6 than this. This is fucking it. This is the best we have to offer.

It’s entirely downhill from here.

Don’t blame the players and tbh don’t even blame the fucking selectors.

Whilst you are not entirely wrong, who then are you blaming for this rot?

Almost everyone who has been involved in the administration of cricket in Zimbabwe for the past 25 years.

[sam_ahm]

Gone through some of the posts. secret is right, the problems are deep and the system is corrupt to the core.

One thing I suggest is that if you play your best XI of younger players with potential, at least they will learn and eventually do well.

Ervine, Williams, Raza, Brendan (I couldn't believe he is back as a player) are all past their prime, and it's a waste if they are going to be dragged on until 2027. Now Cremer's name is also popping up who left the team when they needed him the most but for some fucking reason wants to make a comeback now. Should never be taken back.

How can Ben Curran be dropped for Taylor? One player is the future and the other is playing just to drag his career and has no future. It's plain stupid.

Welch has been a failure, replace him with other youngsters... Jono Campbell, Matt Welch, Naqvi (if this guy could ever qualify) , Evans, get Higgins if you can, what happened to Patel get him in if he is good, Bawa may be and then at least these guys would learn and team will slowly improve.

I mean they need to start at some point..2027 WC will be a disaster for Zimbabwe of they are going to field a team of seven 40 year olds..

It's not about black

[Googly]

That petition is going nowhere. That SRC board is under the firm control of the minister. Im not sure who that is, it's supposed to be General Sanyatwe, but apparently Kazembe Kazembe is currently the acting Minister so something untoward has probably happened.

The fact that neither Minister has gone anywhere near ZC, well not publicly anyway, means that ZC have them firmly under control. I saw a pic of our ZC board on X. A picture tells a thousand words. Not a single person there capable of independent thought nor with any knowledge or background in cricket, all there just to rubber stamp anything theyre told to.

[Marshmallow]

Another icc suspension due political intervention loading?

[PommiePom]

This years batting stats are pretty awful, the bowling is even worse. Only 2 players with international standard averages, Williams and Blessing (bowling).

Most runs
https://www.espncricinfo.com/records/ye ... s-1?team=9

Most wickets
https://www.espncricinfo.com/records/ye ... s-1?team=9

Bar that first Afghan test last year, not a single innings over 300. The tests earlier in the year were marginally better because of Blessing, Bennett and Willo. As soon as they stopped performing it really showed how the rest of the side are struggling against these quality sides.

Tough to say if anyone has visibly improved during this period? Maybe Welch and Tsiga?

[PommiePom]

Also the cold hard fact - COLD. HARD. FACT. - that you can pick any Zim eligible XI on the planet and we are still getting embarrassed by these guys.

The rot is so fucking deep.

Spot on Secret. Even the best XI would have been walloped by this NZ side and would have still struggled against SA. I mean when options are limited you would hope the board wouldn’t make things even harder but then again that assumes doing right by cricket is top of the agenda.

Secret, you are elected chairman of the board, what would be your plan to turn this situation around?

[Googly]

Gone through some of the posts. secret is right, the problems are deep and the system is corrupt to the core.

One thing I suggest is that if you play your best XI of younger players with potential, at least they will learn and eventually do well.

Ervine, Williams, Raza, Brendan (I couldn't believe he is back as a player) are all past their prime, and it's a waste if they are going to be dragged on until 2027. Now Cremer's name is also popping up who left the team when they needed him the most but for some fucking reason wants to make a comeback now. Should never be taken back.

How can Ben Curran be dropped for Taylor? One player is the future and the other is playing just to drag his career and has no future. It's plain stupid.

Welch has been a failure, replace him with other youngsters... Jono Campbell, Matt Welch, Naqvi (if this guy could ever qualify) , Evans, get Higgins if you can, what happened to Patel get him in if he is good, Bawa may be and then at least these guys would learn and team will slowly improve.

I mean they need to start at some point..2027 WC will be a disaster for Zimbabwe of they are going to field a team of seven 40 year olds..

It's not about black

Well that was a sobering and justified rant from SZ, but I disagree with some aspects of it.

Firstly the rot is at admin level, no petitions are going to change that, so we're doomed. Look at the pic of our new board Look at the vitriol from Zolsky who is essentially the ZC formal PR man. Its a disgusting disgrace.

Selectors? Theyre so shite and biased, but they did pick a half decent team this time around. Maybe not have appeared that way but finally our best batters were out there.
The problem is the failure will make them instantly revert to what we know is a losing line-up in white ball, and perhaps red ball going forward. It was an all too brief attempt at picking our best players. The experiment went as hoped and they wont go there again.

Taylor is a better bat than Curran. The only question is will Curran improve? Is he "the future?" He's a decent player, but will he go up a notch, because we need him to. He was dropped for a couple of reasons- he doesnt net very well, and that's important. He looks shit in fact, but he's not shit, but it counts for something. He was going to struggle against that opposition. They wanted to see Taylor before the white ball stuff, so who should have sat out? It should definitely have been Craig, but he's the captain. Curran is not a better bat than Welch. I've watched most of these guys their whole lives, so that was a fair selection.

Bennett has problems at this level, certainly in red ball. He's had a couple of shite innings that has exposed a flaw, which we always knew was there, but these top bowlers know how to exploit it and he has to fix it. It's never that easy or everyone would improve all the time. He's had some time with quality coaches and world class opposition and its still there. If he fails in this white ball series watch how quickly they turn on him. NZ have given Sri Lanka the blue print of his weakness, can they bowl to it? Will Brian have some answers?

The best red ball, and probably 50 over opener, we could get is definitely Byrom. He has superb technique and can absolutely play at this level. Yes hes out of favor at Glamorgan, he hasnt set it alight here either, but 1000% he can open at international level. These guys dont want to spend an extra cent on any player that is not in the national side, and they dont even want to pay most of those guys either. Its a massive massive problem. They want 5 senior players that they have to pay and then about 8 that they can play a social experiment with to see what a talented person is prepared to survive off. It leaves more money for......well we know that answer. With 20 mill a year there's about 6 players living modestly and the rest can't survive. Ball throwers at The Hub earn double what some of our national players do.

Kaitano is a decent opener, but he's got some major glitches and was badly exposed last time.

Kaia is good. Has a great technique, but I think he may have taken a step back from international cricket, I might be wrong though. He's related, he's the right colour, he's a good player, and he is not in the mix, so there has to be another reason.

Why drop Welch? Thats just weird thinking. Replace him with who? Everyone is struggling here. Of all the batters we've got he's one of about 3 that can cope. He had a proper innings yesterday when everyone else failed and it was completely overshadowed by the shocking team capitulation. He has not been good, but he has not been entirely shit either. He's scored a 50 against every team he's played against. Let that sink in. Who has managed that? I'm waiting....
His trajectory is only up. He's a light year ahead of our other "up and coming" players. He was being beaten thru the gate, he was perhaps pushing at the ball, but he's largely fixed both issues in a month. What else do you want to see? Do you have any idea what work goes into that?
We are looking for a decent front 5. The only guy that walks into that front 5 is Naqvi. Actually he replaces Raza.

The idea of putting in youngsters that will learn on the job is exactly what they've been doing for 20 years, is it not? Why repeat the mistake, it has been an unmitigated disaster. We have to be done with that.

You cant replace Welch with Campbell because Campbell is a lower middle order. Campbell was not surviving that. Its like people wanting Tsiga to bat at 3 as well.
Tsiga will fail up the order, leave him exactly where he is, he's done ok. These comments just make me shake my head in despair.
If you want to see a better middle order put Welch there where it is significantly easier, hes a much better bat than Tsiga or Campbell. Its exactly this thinking that has us on a very destructive hamster wheel. The problem is we have limited options from 1-4 and Welch is definitely one of them.
Swap Tsiga with Welch and everyone will be baying for Tsiga after one series and will be saying how good Welch is

The batters we havent seen at this level are Bawa, Campbell Jr, and Welch Jr. It's anyone's guess if they'll cope. Theyre not likely to initially, it just depends how much rope they'll get and we know the answer to that.

Myers is a good player and has a good head on his shoulders. Again he has some flaws. He has had opportunities and hasnt taken them, and he's going to get more.
Books have been written about Wes. Technically he has the skills, but mentally he's blown. Again we are going to see him multiple more times, nobody has had more lives, unfortunately much of that will be in T20, which is not his format.

There are two guys that will not feature against top tier opposition. That's Madande and Musekiwa. Theyre going to keep flogging that horse and it's going to cost us dearly. They are not finishers at international level.

Cremer is our best spinner. If we need a white ball spinner for WC he's the man. If he was keeping someone out that's "up and coming" I'd say its wrong. It is wrong because the system is a corrupt shit show, but it isn't because we need to be competitive. Its the same for replacements for any of the 40 year olds. If someone with a very high ceiling is waiting then replace them. On a good day theyre good enough. Maybe this is the wake-up call they need.

Rainsford finally took to criticising someone other than Welch- he pointed out Williams' flaw off his ribs, which he hasnt bothered or been able to fix in 20 years. He even had a go at Raza's inability to deal with the short ball. All he has to do is duck or sway actually, but he can't or won't. The short ball is only one of his problems at this level in red ball. As Styris pointed out- he's an 8 and thats only if you need his bowling and why do you? Styris is telling us our saviour is an 8, let that sink in. This is the guy that plays a major hand in team selections.
Oh and Ervine- it was pointed out that he'd be a lot more solid if he left on length. He plays and misses at an extraordinary number of balls that are a foot or more over 4th and 5th stump. Clearly given the green light light over Green label and fanta and relief that the white experiment had bombed.
They had a dip at only one shot of Welch's and that was a ball that beat him all ends up, squared him up and was stuck on his crease and took a coat of varnish off middle stump. The implication was that was his defence, yet he lasted about 50 of those same deliveries from a guy who's probably top 4 on the planet and at the height of his powers. Had they been vaguely observant they'd have noticed his significant improvement and his technical changes. They could of course wander round and ask players what they've been up to. , but playing golf and pretending they were good cricketers is far more important. From mediocre cricketers to handsomely paid (and on time) commentators singing off the ZC hymn sheet would be laughable if it wasnt a big part of the problem. Its contemptuous actually. People who dont understand cricket (99% of Zimbabwe) actually listen to these blokes.

We can be more competitive in all formats. The front 6 failed us, and the bowling barring Blessing, was just as shit, but we can absolutely do better.
Back in the day we didnt win too many either. We did have some key players that helped us win a few games- Flowerx2, Goodwin, Johnson, Streak and Olonga were proper.

We need a few bandages, not just two.
Taylor- well lets see how he goes, it looks fairly promising.
Cremer- he is our only leggie of any caliber, probably our only spinner approaching international level.
Evans/Higgins- we need both of these guys, not necessarily at the same time, but they need to be in the system.
Muyeye- if he doesnt make the England side he will be available at some point. Youre never getting him for 1500 a month either. Sacking Zolsky would free up a few grand.
Byrom- he's an opener for 50 over and red ball. He needs to be in our system if our existing openers struggle. He's a better red ball opener than both of them.
Naqvi- whatever the problem is it needs to be fixed at ministerial level. There's no guarantee he will be good but we have to take the punt.

We dont have the players to have different squads for different formats. Trying to hide lesser players in the shorter formats is going to cost us hugely.

ZC have finally put us against top quality opposition and at the same time shot themselves in both feet. Hats off to them for that at least. The first part and not the latter.
When we get humped by lesser sides we can pause and reflect on state of mind, selections or any other multiple reasons, and the players are the first to do that. BUT when we get so badly smashed by a top tier side all the players have no excuse but to say- ffs that was an embarrassing shit show and we need to improve dramatically. Let's find the guys that can and want to. We have them.
By the same token ZC has to realize what they have in place right now just doesnt cut it. We need improvements in every direction. The players are key to this, currently theyre a necessary evil. Look the reality may be a distant memory after some more green label and fanta and a quick trip up to Elephant Hills to see how the retirement project is going, but lets hope they will make some changes.

[TapsC2]

Why I'm against Cremer coming back is when we were at our lowest he left. He was the captain. Our lowest point he decided he couldn't do this anymore. This is an elite sport. You have to be up for the fight.