Phantom Draft

[zimbos_05]

Eagles are currently finalising sponsorship deals and as a result this has delayed the release of their kit. Also following the Rhinos Maroon kit, the Eagles have to reassess their options in relation to kit colour and will be looking in to all avenues.

You guys won't be sticking to that energetic orange? If you are sticking to orange, I can try my hand at designing something, irrespective of the fact that Eagles did not show too much love towards Mountaineers while picking their drafts

Oops, only saw this post now. Not sticking with Orange. Wanted to choose colours that were more indicative of Mashonaland and have some sort of linkage. In the end found the flag of Harare and went with that seeing as that would most likely be considered the capital of Mashonaland if you will.

I showed all the love in the world. Didn't select a single Mountaineer. I think you should let me beat you in all Logan Cup matches purely based on this fact.

Interesting to see Prosper Utseya and Chamu were not selected both have plenty of International experience especially Prosper who is ( or was until recently ) ranked in the top 10 t20 bowling rankings and is the national incumbent in all 3 formats, what does this say about Utseya and his un-disputed national selection .....

I was also surprised no one selected an import player which I think was a good thing ....

I think its a clear sign of how most feel towards Propser. Underperforming yes man of the team.

I contemplated long and hard on an import player. Was only thinking about one of them though. Must have spent at least 7 of the rounds thinking on choosing him in that round. In the end decided better to spend that money on a zim talent so that they can get match time and develop their skills. If we cast aside the zim talent then we damage our current and future prospects for the national team.

[CrimsonAvenger]

I showed all the love in the world. Didn't select a single Mountaineer. I think you should let me beat you in all Logan Cup matches purely based on this fact.

Haha . Hands off the Logan Cup, mate

We contemplated Pettini a bit, but decided our players come first. I think this is the same with others too. In the frantic competition to get our local players into our teams, at some point the imports stopped crossing our minds as well.

[jaybro]

Im sorry FF and Crimson but I have no sympathy for you guys concerning the loss of your local talent. I watched closely to see whether you guys tried to keep the same squad together as the Muture boys clearly have the strongest squad and for the first 3 rounds i thought you would but in the 4th round you made a play for Welch and then after the veto i thought you might just stick with Tino Mawoyo but instead Mutumbami was selected. At this point I knewn Tino was gone and Wellington was in danger as well and subsequently you lost both which Im sure really hurt, ( losing Tiripano was another loss but seemed un-avoidable). After losing those two I thought you would get back to picking locals but after selecting Trenchard and Munyede you lost both Mufudza and Mupunga. So I'm sorry no sympathy here but cudo's for a very strong squad put together I think you missed a trick by selecting Timmy Maruma so early as I highly doubt anyone else was planning on taking him in the 8th round .....

Also who are you guys planning on opening the batting with Kasuza ????

[foreignfield]

Im sorry FF and Crimson but I have no sympathy for you guys concerning the loss of your local talent. I watched closely to see whether you guys tried to keep the same squad together as the Muture boys clearly have the strongest squad and for the first 3 rounds i thought you would but in the 4th round you made a play for Welch and then after the veto i thought you might just stick with Tino Mawoyo but instead Mutumbami was selected. At this point I knewn Tino was gone and Wellington was in danger as well and subsequently you lost both which Im sure really hurt, ( losing Tiripano was another loss but seemed un-avoidable). After losing those two I thought you would get back to picking locals but after selecting Trenchard and Munyede you lost both Mufudza and Mupunga. So I'm sorry no sympathy here but cudo's for a very strong squad put together I think you missed a trick by selecting Timmy Maruma so early as I highly doubt anyone else was planning on taking him in the 8th round .....

Also who are you guys planning on opening the batting with Kasuza ????

Well in hindsight we might have kept Mufudza instead of adding Munyede, but we wanted a left-armer after loosing Wellington. Mutumbami was a no brainer after we missed Chakabva due to us hanging on to Shingi. As Crimson explained at the time, the decision to veto Shingi's move so early very much shaped the remainder of the draft for us. We also desperately wanted to keep Mushangwe ... nobody else picked three bowlers in the first five rounds which of course left us on the back foot as far as keeping our others bowlers was concerned.

There was a slight hope that Tino's indifferent form this season would put suitors off for one more round, but that wasn't to be. After that experience we decided not to take any chances with Timmy Maruma as we did not want to end up with Mutizwa or Chamu instead.

Opening in the Logan Cup is something we've given a lot of thought over the course of the draft (in Pro50 and T20s Hami opens with Kasuza or Sauramba, so no probs there). We got neither Welch nor Mawoyo (Sibanda also out of the picture), which left only one other promising opener available and that was veto-protected Brian Chari. We decided against established underperformers and had a long look at that subborn object at the top of the Rhino's order early in the season, Chokununga. In the end we went for a family solution: We will ask Timmy Maruma to open in the Logan Cup with his little brother as back up. We'll decide on that after the Mountaineers pre-season tour to India.

I guess you sometimes end up with rather orthodox decisions when two guys throw their opinions together and start debating the relative merits of players of the caliber of Simba Gupo or Bornaparte Mujuru.

[foreignfield]

I showed all the love in the world. Didn't select a single Mountaineer. I think you should let me beat you in all Logan Cup matches purely based on this fact.

Haha . Hands off the Logan Cup, mate

We contemplated Pettini a bit, but decided our players come first. I think this is the same with others too. In the frantic competition to get our local players into our teams, at some point the imports stopped crossing our minds as well.

Yes, it's a good thing nobody picked an import as the squads are small. I must admit I advocated Pettini quite a bit, he has scored over 1000 FC runs for Mountaineers, but the chairman talked me out of it

[foreignfield]

Interesting picks guys, here's an initial analysis of who went where:

picks.JPG

Each row indicates who each team has picked from the franchises currently being represented by the players, and each column indicated how many of each franchise got picked up at the end of the auction.

Us and the Eagles have retained as many as 7 of our current team, it is a no-branier in our case as we had brilliant performers all through the season. We could not pick any of our own after midway point though, suffered badly with poaching

14 Mountaineers getting picked, max of all franchises, with Eagles and Rocks (surprisingly) coming close with 13 each. Just 9 Tuskers getting picked, probably an indication of lack of quality this season. A little disappointed that only 11 Rhinos got picked. Eagles picking Mountaineers is the only column where there is a zero

You guys can analyse further...

The high number of Rocks' players is really astonishing given their poor performances lately. The have a few promising players and a couple of bits and pieces players, but I never thought anyone would spend 3.000 $ on Garwe.

[foreignfield]

Here are the final squads:

Mountaineers

1. H Masakadza
2. T Chatara
3. S Masakadza
4. R Mutumbami
5. N Mushangwe
6. K Kasuza
7. K Sauramba
8. T Maruma
9. S Trenchard
10. K Munyede
11. M Mbofana
12. T Muzarawetu
13. C Musoko
14. G Mamhiyo
15. TP Maruma

Mashonaland Eagles

1. B Taylor
2. S Raza
3. T Panyangara
4. N Welch
5. N Waller
6. A Manyumwa
7. I Kaia
8. N Mpofu
9. B Mugochi
10. P Masvaure
11. J Gumbie
12. T Kamungozi
13. C Mumba
14. T Mutombodzi
15. C Mpofu

Mid West Rhinos

1. S Williams
2. B Vitori
3. R Chakabva
4. M Waller
5. T Mawoyo
6. R Kaia
7. D Tiripano
8. N Madziva
9. R Muzhange
10. T Mufudza
11. B Mlambo
12. T Muzarabani
13. B Mujuru
14. T Garwe
15. Chisoro

Matabeleland Tuskers

1. E Chigumbura
2. T Mupariwa
3. V Sibanda
4. M Vermeulen
5. P Moor
6. L Jongwe
7. M Chinouya
8. W Masakadza
9. Chimhamhiwa
10. T Mupunga
11. F Mutizwa
12. B Chari
13. J Nyumbu
14. C Kunje
15. P Tsvanhu

[Jemisi]

And just thought of giving you guys at Kwekwe a gift too. You have been traditionally wearing red, but let us keep it to the national side. As you guys have been one of the teams who have looked keen to inherit the Rocks talent, you can go for a color that combines Rhinos and Rocks.

Let us know if you guys would like to order these kits. We would only charge a Mufudza for these

rhinos21.jpg

Beautiful. I like the Rhinos/Rocks merger colour. Thanks mate

[Jemisi]

Interesting to see Prosper Utseya and Chamu were not selected both have plenty of International experience especially Prosper who is ( or was until recently ) ranked in the top 10 t20 bowling rankings and is the national incumbent in all 3 formats, what does this say about Utseya and his un-disputed national selection .....

I was also surprised no one selected an import player which I think was a good thing ....

I thought seriously about the imports, but then since no one else took one in the early stages, I felt it better if we just took the available Zim players.

[foreignfield]

Looking at all the squads, I reckon Jemisi has probably put together the best batting line-up with Mawoyo, Williams, Chakabva, and Waller. That looks really solid, but I'm not overly concerned by the Rhinos' bowling, Vitori apart. Tiripano has done well in Shingi's and Chatara's wake, it will be interesting to see how he fares as Vitori's new ball partner.

Eagles and Mountaineers rely heavily on Taylor/Raza and Hami/Mutumbami and need the other batsmen to chip in and bat around them. Tuskers have a dangerous batting line-up, both for them and the opposition, I would say: Vusi, Chigs, Moor are all explosive but prone to blowing hot and cold.

Overall the squads are much more balanced than the current franchises. Bring on the Phantom League.