[Issue]: There should be a 5th domestic side

[ZIMDOGGY]

watermelons proposal makes more sense to me than a 5th domestic side.

id have the interchange rule in place though (12 a side) and would reduce the import player to one.

[sixes fan]

I think as zim we have few domestic sides because we
have a very small player pool " competitive " What
i might suggest is keep the franchises @ 4 to maintain
competitiveness & change their selection system.
We might then need to add more teams in the zpl &
add more games lyk 3 day games, 50 overs, t20 & 40 overs
cricket both home & away. From this league the winner
all points combined will be promoted to franchise in place
of the last placed franchise team yearly. Introduce a
selection system were a player has to have eg a minimum
2 club hundreds & 5 50s to be eligible for franchise
selection, minimum of 3 -5fors etc for bowlers or to
have a minimum of 10 international games for the national
team, the fifth side introduce hong kong or netherlands
Selection into zpl must be strict too lyk 2 hundreds
in school cricket @ least or for zim u19, this myt help
in clearing out losers like handirisi & not losing players
like snater who is now playing for netherlands A & producing
results. this helps also as records of players are kept
by zc from school to club through to national team &
not seeing kids like shumba in zimu19 who have no
record whatsoever in school cricket . This is more of
a perfomance rewarding system

[Detective RDS]

Wicket keeper Craig Dollar played only one match for the Mashonaland Eagles whereas his wicket keeping counterparts Shoun Handirisi & Taffy Mupariwa both got a decent run with the Matabeleland Tuskers without much success.

As you yourself have stated above, the issue is selection, not a shortage of places. Shoun and Taffy should be nowhere near first class cricket. Australia has six first class teams, four is fine for Zimbabwe.

It would have been better if Dollar played for Matabeleland Tuskers and they got rid of one of the under performing keepers. But that's only one incident. What about the others ? Diplock & Zhawi not picked for other Eagles pacers, Bowie not picked for Mpofu & Vitori, Bell didn't get much opportunity for Nyumbu. So, this shows there are deserving reserves but shortage of places. Zimbabwe did have 5 teams in the initial franchise years & I can't remember such a situation where players didn't get chances.

You have clearly defined a SELECTION issue, not a lack of oppotunity issue RDS.

What you have basically argued, is there is alot of dead wood in the domestic setup. So lets increase the number of first class teams to accomodate both dead wood and fresh youngsters.

Do you see it that that is what you are championing?

Why not just replace dead wood? of which there is alot. Plenty of cricketers in the domestic setup are averaging only 20 with the bat for petes sake.

There is also the question of cost and the small fact that the entire zimbabwean side is only club quality at other countries.

The thing which we need to consider is that this is Zimbabwe & there are unique challenges to confront as suggested by Wayne James, the Matabeleland Tuskers coach in an interview. I really would have appreciated if we got rid of the under performing players & send them to club cricket. May be the under performing players will play couple of seasons & fade away & will get replaced by another set of average players if there's not much of development.

The players who didn't get their chances will fit nicely in a new domestic side. Cost is a factor, I agree. If it's difficult to manage one more domestic or franchise side then we should play the Zimbabwe development side or academy side as the 5th team.

you'd also run the risk of the ICC revoking its first class status.

ICC never cared about Zimbabwe. They never interfered when they needed to in the past, that's well documented. So, why will they get bothered about the standard of Zimbabwean domestic structure ? However, initially Zimbabwe operated with 5 franchise sides.

And yet anotyher thought,

With this logic (even if it were the case) then Australia should expand their first class system from 6 (yes only 6) to 42.

To give the hundreds, upon hundreds of young talented cricketers, all better than Kyle Bowie, a decent run.

Do you think that will improve Australias stocks internationally?

We need to consider the demand & supply. In Zimbabwean national side, there is massive demand for young blood & new talent. The current 4 teams domestic competition can't provide the young players with enough opportunities. The club cricket of Zimbabwe isn't as competitive as Australia.

Australia is fine with 6 teams. There is consistency between demand & supply. Plus Australian domestic sides don't carry the under performing players unlike Zimbabwe and most of the domestic players are quality players. Plus their club cricket is extremely strong & emphasized. They have one of the best along with England cricketing infrastructure & they are time to time in the close observation of professional eyes. We don't have this luxury.

What I believe is needed is a selection process that oversees the domestic scene to stop Bobby Mpofu get selected over the Bowies etc.

Short term gain is Bobby, who is probably 1% better if you took a snapshot today, but is at his ceiling in terms of potential wherein Bowie has alot more to presumably improve on.
That reeks of self interest to winning a meaningless zimbabwean domestic cup.

I have noticed that australias domestic scene will turf out players in their mid thirties for developmental players. Remember, most aussie cricketers dont establish themselves in the australian team until they are 31/32 so 33/34 isnt 'old' in the aussie textbook.

The point im making is Australia select their players domestically with international success in mind, whreas the mountaineers select their team with Decembers logan cup trophy in mind.

Well written, agree with all. I'll not complain if we get such selection process but that's difficult in Zimbabwean context as I mentioned earlier. What can be immediate solution, a 5th domestic side to facilitate the players.

watermelons proposal makes more sense to me than a 5th domestic side.

id have the interchange rule in place though (12 a side) and would reduce the import player to one.

I can understand your inclination towards 4 teams but I really have no idea how you are going to operate with 3 or 2 domestic sides.

[Googly]

This same core of players have played each other year in and year out for over a decade, there's no spice. There's no desire to include youngsters and although these suggestions are great it's not going to change much. If you want to see it really ramp up put all the whites in one team. There's not enough of them, but a few might drift back, then there will be some really competitive cricket to watch.