2nd ODI ZIMBABWE VS SRILANKA

[slcricfan1]

And our 2 6ft 8 strike bowlers bowl at 130 and one carries 20kg more than he should. Don't get me wrong, we are very lucky to have them and they're pretty decent, but the rest of the world is at 140 plus.

Bhuvineshwar Kumar is opening bowling for India right now. We saw Broad and Anderson still going. BD, SL and Wi still have 130s bowlers going. Olivier was bowling 130s too for SA. A little bit harsh man.

[Googly]

Maybe, but being that tall you are probably starting with a 5kph advantage
If you're going to bowl 130 you need to be more accurate than they are. And less short stuff , but they're good, long may they last and improve.

[Donald]

Regarding Williams and ervine retirements those boys are supremely fit. Not an ounce of flab on them. They can continue for another couple of years if they want and God knows we need them.

Would throw some wonger senior welches way and other prospective players abroad should the retirements come all at once.

[secretzimbo]

If that's the scenario in 18 months time then the situation is beyond calamitous. Without Ervine and Williams in particular, but also Raza, we will pretty much be at 2004 levels which is start from scratch and hoping people emerge from the pack of FC cricketers. Only the most very naive optimist may think that this will happen. It is almost impossible to become a world class cricketer in our system.
We've debated this point to death, but unfortunately it's concrete  fact. We're all mostly armchair experts, but if you ask a reputable international coach I'm almost certain you'll get the same answer. You are only as good as your domestic system unless you're a bit of a freak. Had Taylor and Williams been raised in a different system they'd be even better than they were/are.
It takes a very special cricketer to come from here, get thrown in the deep end and swim well.

On top of that the walkout team bought us time to "rebuild."
Two decades later with a now  collapsed club system that genuinely worked and an ailing stop start franchise system, no pathways for age group cricketers  we are still rebuilding, this time with Lego bricks instead of clay ones. A high percentage of our franchise guys don't have the ability to improve even with the best coaching in the world because they didn't have a good enuf base to begin with. That livestream I watched the other day filled me with alarm.

I'm covering boring old ground that tends to divide this forum, but there is deep trouble around the corner.
What kick started our best era was the import of Johnson and Goodwin and we're going to have to revisit that again soon, but there's nobody currently out there that are of their caliber either.

It's really worrying mate. We've got to hope and pray that a whole number of things align and a whole number of player magically raise their game. As you say, an exceptionally difficult task considering our domestic system.

Ervine, Williams and Raza are almost irreplaceable. We've seen the very biggest cricketing nations and very best systems struggle to recover when losing a few stalwarts at the same time. SA. SL. England. We'll have to hope Reggie carries on for an extra year or two in the hope of retaining some semblance of experience and leadership.

Wes and Shumba are going to have to develop a huge amount and very quickly. They've got the talent as much as anyone, but it's going to be hard. It would help hugely if we had decent coaches, but we don't. We've got a head coach who turns up once every six months and has no real credentials, and assistant coaches who are nice guys but struggled in their own international careers. It's going to be so fucking important that Ervine/Willo/Raza/BT are kept in the system somehow once they retire - but will they even want to?
Is Matsikenyeri the right man to guide Wes and Shumba from making 40's and 50's to making 100's, when he himself never managed an international century in 136 international innings?

The weight of expectation and pressure on Wes and Milton must be unbelievable. They are being expected to provide vital contributions, across formats, right now, but they know that in 18 months they will be expected to lead the team and replace two of the greatest batsmen we've ever had. Very few people at that age would be able to endure that weight of pressure and expectation.

We are then going to be relying on people like Burl to step up big time. Someone like Kaitano has done well, but is it just a rich vein of form? is he really good enough to sustain it for another five years, across formats?

Evans is quite exciting. Hopefully that broken ankle hasn't held him back much. It would be nice to have a genuine seam allrounder, who could maybe slot in at 6. Maybe Campbell Jnr can become a competent player as well in the middle order. I think Madande is genuinely exciting from what I've seen, but it's a bit of a punt/hope/pray.

We are going to need several of the current U19's to get instant domestic opportunities and really kick on. We effectively need a Wes/Shumba/Marumani/Myers kind of situation EVERY two year batch. Seems unlikely.

Another thing:

Is it wise to be playing a double round-robin Logan Cup, and then only 1 fucking week of domestic T20s? It's great to see so much red ball cricket from a nerdy cricket-lovers perspective but it's sort of mental from a ZC perspective. Must be costing a fortune, and currently it looks like we may play only 1 test in 2022. In July.

T20WCQ this summer. Potential T20WC this year. Potential 50 over WC next year.
And yet we are spending the vats majority of our season playing red ball cricket?

We have a mindset problem with formats. We are stuck in thee 80's and everybody thinks Test cricket should be our focus. Maybe if we literally ever had any fixtures then I'd agree. But we don't. We need to get our priorities right. Even most of the young players and teenagers will tell you they want to play Tests. That's just not the case anymore in a lot of countries. If we were playing 10 Tests a year then fantastic.
But we've got (hopefully) two big world cups coming up in two years, and then a home world cup in 2027. We need to focus way more on white ball cricket.

If Wes, Shumba and others were playing 20 domestic T20's a season and 10-15 List A's a season then maybe we'd start to see some kind of consistency and development. Thee quality won't be there, but as you've said yourself Googly, sometimes quantity can to an extent make up for that.

[secretzimbo]

If we are relying on imports then it's basically going to be people who have failed in England.

So we are then hoping that someone who can't crack it in Division 2 of English domestic cricket with world class facilities and coaching, can suddenly come here with almost zero coaching and ropey facilities, and turn on the style in international cricket against the worlds best? Seems wishful thinking.

If Ben Curran can't cement his place at Northants - one of the worst counties - or Nick Welch can't get a game at Leicestershire - an even worse county - then I doubt they will be our saviours.

[secretzimbo]

I still have no idea what David Houghton is doing as 'coaching manager', and it seems nobody else really knows either, other than working with Mountaineers.

I hope he is putting in place coaching education, qualification and pathways at various levels. That would be a very big thing. But it will probably take years to see the effects.

What are Jarvis and Chigumbura doing as 'national talent scouts'?. Everyone can tell you who is a decent cricketer in Zim and who isn't. It's not like we have thousands of players to keep track of. Many members on this forum can give aa good guide. Hopefully they are doing something more meaningful and perhaps identifying juniors.

There needs to be a pathway.

School cricket > National age group > Franchise > International.

How do we bridge the absolutely gigantic gaps between each of those stages? How do we create a smooth high performance pathway that identified the best talent, retains that talent, develops it and prepares it for international cricket?

We are a million miles away.

[CrimsonAvenger]

Could we have the doom and gloom in some other thread? This is one of the rare match threads where we have won, by the way

[Donald]

Could we have the doom and gloom in some other thread? This is one of the rare match threads where we have won, by the way

That's a fair point actually

Sorry

Hope we have another supreme batting display Friday.

[lobsang]

Honestly, it is annoying to go through these sad future scenarios and to hear members on this forum's predictions of what could happen after the trio of Williams, Ervine and Raza retire. Let's remind ourselves of the fact that Ervine went to play in Ireland with the hope that he could play for them and if the Irish board saw in him something special, he would have represented Ireland by now. In Raza's case too, He would have been wooed by PCB to play for them like what they did to Usman Qadir, the son of great Abdul Qadir. Usman was on the cusp of playing for Australia but finally he chose his birth-country.

Shumba, Madhevere and Bawa and even Myers, if he makes a comeback in the near future, have what it takes to become as good as these three if not better, it will all come down to their willingness to put in the hard yards. And remember we are not hoping for them to be like Kohli, Maxwell and ABD. there are many pessimistic souls on this forum. 2004 talent drought was way worse than what the departure of these three would do to say the least. Almost 15 to 16 players left Zimbabwe cricket for greener pasture . And that kind of players' exodus could have crippled even BCCI, CA and ECB for 4 to five years. Williams, Ervine and BT would have disappeared into oblivion if they played for India, Australia or England, considering the abundance of talents in those countries, coz they struggled initially in their careers. They kept getting opportunities in Zimbabwe thanks to the small pool of talents in the country and they got better as the years passed by with experience.

Burl can become a better player than Sikandar Raza and for that to happen, the administration or selectors must put some faith and support that he is important part of the squad moving forward, and Shumba by his age is way well ahead of Ervine in my opinion. And Madhevere is as talented as they come and not many would have said such things about BT at Madhevere's age when he burst onto the international scene. BT, Williams, Ervine and Raza are good players but honestly they are not irreplaceable at all. There is every chance that Myers and Murray may return in the near future and ZC will dangle an enticing carrot to bring them back for sure at some stage and then there is this Bawa kid, and Marumani could work on his batting coz he is extremely young. From bowling point of view, Ngarava and Muzarabani can easily serve Zim for another 8 to 10 years and few other will definitely emerge in between.

Now this part is very important as far as I am concerned, If I were Mukuhulani, I would not be that stupid to let the game die coz I and my colleague ( all corrupted ) can keep on milking ICC funds as long as we can field a team that can challenge and beat the number 6, 7 and 8 ranked teams more often than not and I will do everything in my power to assemble a team that can get us to ICC global events so that we can keep our pockets full of $€€$. Remember before 2019 World cup qualifiers took place, they did everything in their hands to bring back BT and Jarvis.

So after these three are gone, yes Zimbabwe cricket may suffer defeats that they would not suffer with the present team at the hands of lesser known teams for a year or two but I think these dorks at ZC will devise something to keep the engine working for as long as they can so that they pockets will not run out of those $$$$€€€€.

[sloandog]

I don't really agree with a lot of what you've put if I'm honest.

In 2004, yes, the players exodus almost crippled the system and the blatant racism from within ZC was much less covered up as it is now. However, the system which brought in Ervine, Williams and BT was still around and thriving. The club system was strong, the Under 19's had just had a golden time of it at the CWC and there was genuinely a lot of talent I the wings, they simply were not ready and that's the bottom line.

I don't think many on this forum would disagree that Taylor turned some heads when he played against Sri Lanka as an 18 year old. From day one he was hyped up and rightly so, he was as gifted as any batter we've had since Andy Flower, period. He's been our best ODI player ever and from the start you could tell he had what it took.

My point is that the current lads in the squad need another two years to mature, and I don't know if the likes of Ervine and Williams will last that long. Again, they were part of a system which has been long dismantled and left to memory, to riminis about and long for. That system gave the country a lot of solid FC and international players. Even 2 years later, the under 19's Heald their own and had such talent. Cremer, meth, Nicholson, Mire, Higgins, Ballance, Querl, Williams himself...they all came from that system of club crixket and solid school cricket. It doesn't exist now mate and the situation we had in 2004 is going to look very rosy compared to now. We have a handful of potential international players coming through, that's it, and they are ready.