Do or Die Match: Zim vs WI

[Kriterion_BD]

OR... why not send some of our batsmen to play in the Ranji Trophy? They've got like 600 FC teams over there. Even someone like Chari would make a first XI somewhere you'd think.

There are 28 FC teams. And that does not mean the standard is so low for a Chari kind of guy to walk in to a side. To give an example, Karnataka have been in finals in 3 out of last 4 seasons and are table toppers again this season in one of the groups. They have won the Ranji Trophy twice out of those 3 occasions. At any point, there are 25 guys fighting to be in the final 15 this season. And you can see at least half a dozen former Karnataka cricketers with more than decent FC records who have left the state in search of regular first team opportunities in teams like Vidarbha and Assam.

Yeah. Chari might not even make a first xi in a bangladeshi first class side. Although chari has decent technique...at least he looks like he can hold a bat.

But in india you probably have a talent pool of several million...equivalent to the entire zim population competing for 300 first team slots. So yes there are a lot more first class roster spots in india, but the number of people competing is magnitudes more.

Simple math. 60 fc spots in zim (15 man squad x 4 teams), and lets estimate 5000 club cricketers in the country. But in india there would be 500 spots but the entire country would have say 1,000,000 serious cricket players.

[CrimsonAvenger]

I don't think it was entirely a lucky win. Raza/Chisoro put on a big chanceless partnership. And when we were bowling we had the momentum.
Maybe we were lucky to be on the right side of DL when the rain hit, but if weather hadn't intervened I think Zim was in a good position to win anyway.

I agree. We did everything to get to a winning position when the rains came. It was anything but luck. That fightback from Raza, Tiripano and Chisoro with the bat and exceptional spells by Chisoro and Williams made sure that the WI were under the pump when the weather intervened. This was a more convincing win than the D/L win over Pakistan last season. Good smart work in the fielding department by Ervine and Hamiton too, two of our safest hands. So Tiripano played as a specialist batsman after all

[CrimsonAvenger]

Lest we forget, shall we call this our sweet revenge for what happened at the U19 WC?

[Googly]

Kriterion- not 5000 club cricketers, maybe 300.

[Kriterion_BD]

Kriterion- not 5000 club cricketers, maybe 300.

Makes sense. So a chari represents 5 to 1 "probability" of a senior club cricketer being good enough or making a first class career.

But what i really mean by "club" is the total number of 15+ kids playing organized cricket. Ie no tennis balls or beach cricket, proper pitches, 11 players per side, neutral umpires, independemt scorers, etc. Surely there are more than 300 of those in zim. My guess is 5000 for countries like zimbabwe and new zealand, 50,000+ for england, 250,000+ for bangladesh/pakistan, and 1,000,000 for india.

[Googly]

Mmmm I'm sure people will dispute this, but maybe 20 schools playing cricket, 6 teams (A's and B's) per school from u15 to Firsts, gives about 1300 boys, round it up to 2000 and that's an optimistic number.

[Googly]

The scary number is the lack of school leavers that carry on with their cricket.

[Kriterion_BD]

So my 5000 number is pretty close.

The problem is of that 5000, maybe a couple hundred are white and most of them wont stick around. But 90% of the talent is in that group of 200 odd white players. Maybe with streak some will come back and or not leave.

[jaybro]

So we're in the final who would have thought .....

A victory here would really help forget some of ghe bad losses we have suffered in the past year .....

[Jemisi]

Missed most of this but well fought fellas! 10th Win against the Windies.