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ZCF OriginalZCF Hall of Famer

Opening post

Really Mpofu should be 11, Price 10 and Jarvis hopefully working his way to being a decent 9.
The Third Innings
Veteran
Looking at the Proteas they are most likely to go with Steyn, Morkel, Tsotsobe, Harrison/Tahir none of these can be classed batters (Dale's only half century in the epic 2008 Aus tour, nothing else aside that), they back themselves to get the runs, I think we really should not make excuses for our batting not performing, and Hami unfortunately did not chip in (thanks for his wicket, but we expected runs), an extra 20 from him would have made the difference, and not an extra 20 from the tail...
It is about perception. The Zimbabwe tail starts after Waller who also have to compromise his strokeplay due to the lack of strike rotation. The tail indeed is perceived to be longer that it actually is.
ZCF OriginalZCF Hall of Famer

FlowerPower wrote:Looking at the Proteas they are most likely to go with Steyn, Morkel, Tsotsobe, Harrison/Tahir none of these can be classed batters (Dale's only half century in the epic 2008 Aus tour, nothing else aside that), they back themselves to get the runs, I think we really should not make excuses for our batting not performing, and Hami unfortunately did not chip in (thanks for his wicket, but we expected runs), an extra 20 from him would have made the difference, and not an extra 20 from the tail...


But Hami managed 41 runs in the match. You can't expect everyone in the top 6 to make runs every game. Whereas you can expect the tail as a whole to contribute something, and ours at the moment is pretty much guaranteed to give us nothing.
The Third Innings
Veteran

Jemisi wrote:

FlowerPower wrote:Looking at the Proteas they are most likely to go with Steyn, Morkel, Tsotsobe, Harrison/Tahir none of these can be classed batters (Dale's only half century in the epic 2008 Aus tour, nothing else aside that), they back themselves to get the runs, I think we really should not make excuses for our batting not performing, and Hami unfortunately did not chip in (thanks for his wicket, but we expected runs), an extra 20 from him would have made the difference, and not an extra 20 from the tail...


But Hami managed 41 runs in the match. You can't expect everyone in the top 6 to make runs every game. Whereas you can expect the tail as a whole to contribute something, and ours at the moment is pretty much guaranteed to give us nothing.


But Jemisi we are beginning to split hairs here, our tail (8,9,10,11) actually gave us 39 runs compared to Hami's 41, I know not everyone should score big runs but as a top order batsman, we can live with one innings missed and the other is a payback (Mawoyo's 5 and 52, Vusi's 93 and 13, Chakabva's 37 and 5 etc) all I'm saying instead of pointing the finger at the tail, we should ask why they had to perform yes they need to learn to contribute, or defend (as is necessary) but to say they cost us the match is not correct analysis. Hami was going well before he gave it away second innings, same can be said of Taylor (doesn't take away from the brilliant knock, but after the reprieve he really shouldn't have been out for the same shot to the same bowler to the same field position), ditto Chakabva, who also got a reprieve but didn't make use of it. For me I'd be happier if we asked questions of our batting (which isn't terrible mind you) and not rely on our lower order to do a clean up act.
Veteran
Im sure Cremer will contribute greatly batting wise when he comes back, just look at his world cup scores, most impressive was the 37 against australia
ZCF OriginalZCF Hall of Famer
What our tail is lacking is a decent number 8. When Cremer is back he can probably fill that role. I don't really have a problem with 9,10,11 being poor batsmen. If you are depending on your strike bowlers to win you matches with the bat you have probably got problems elsewhere. Extra runs from the tail are a nice bonus but I would never count on them. That being said, having 4 number 11s is a bit excessive which is why we need someone who can bat a bit at 8.
My All-time Zimbabwe XI
Neil Johnson, Brendan Taylor, Murray Goodwin, Andy Flower (w), David Houghton, Sean Williams, Heath Streak (c), Andy Blignaut, Paul Strang, Eddo Brandes, Blessing Muzarabani
ZCF OriginalZCF Hall of Famer
I may be splitting hairs, but I don't think so. My point was not to defend Hami in particualar, but to point out that the worst performing batsman in the top 7 produced 41. If we play every match like that we will be doing very well. Because invariably a bloke or two does nothing in a test. So for us to be saying "Oh, if only all of our top six made 100 runs we would win" is just being unrealistic.

However, it is entirely real to expect the collective of 8-11 to produce something between them.

As Eugene said, this is especially true of the No.8 spot.
The Third Innings
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