ICC Men's T20 World Cup Africa Sub-regional Qualifier

ZIMDOGGY wrote: ↑Tue Oct 08, 2024 7:21 am

Ervine is either hanging out to play that test, or the 27 wc.

maybe the test is where he reassess if he has that further two years in him.

not really sure why the England test is such a big deal. Yes, from a sanction/political pov. But it will be a half assed england side played in Cumbria or somewhere.

Mark my words - this series has "boards have mutually agreed to postpone this series due to a packed international calendar" written all over it. Which of course means the ECB will tell ZC they don't see the point of having to honor their commitments.

Kriterion_BD wrote: ↑Tue Oct 08, 2024 3:40 pm

ZIMDOGGY wrote: ↑Tue Oct 08, 2024 7:21 am

Ervine is either hanging out to play that test, or the 27 wc.

maybe the test is where he reassess if he has that further two years in him.

not really sure why the England test is such a big deal. Yes, from a sanction/political pov. But it will be a half assed england side played in Cumbria or somewhere.

Mark my words - this series has "boards have mutually agreed to postpone this series due to a packed international calendar" written all over it. Which of course means the ECB will tell ZC they don't see the point of having to honor their commitments.

Absolutely will not be postponed or cancelled. Trent Bridge have already sold a few thousand tickets for each of the first three days, at like £60+ each.

Pat_Bee wrote: ↑Tue Oct 08, 2024 5:40 pm

First 3 days? 😂

That’s an awful lot of confidence in our batting. Suppose it could rain for 2 days and drag it out a bit.

We could surely have squeezed in a 2 or even 3 test series into the 5 days?

There's a FB page called Zimbabwe Cricket Ultras that I've weirdly never seen before that has 19k followers.

Mutendira is under the pump from the public. I'm sure it's not going to make a difference because these guys make decisions with impunity, but at least there's some discomfort because he's been on a podcast trying to justify their selection procedures.

As usual he was just allowed to talk instead of being asked some direct questions.

The real question is how he gets to be the national convenor and he's been in the mix since 2010 or thereabouts. Is it just him and Chigumbura with input from Hamilton, Raza and the coaches? How much input?

Do these guys ever go and watch a domestic game other than Takashinga club cricket?

He had a very mediocre international career and his domestic stats are not great either. I'm not suggesting that if you're personally not great at cricket you don't know what's good and what isn't, but it sure looks that way.

I am skeptical of a mediocre bowler being able to see who's got potential as a batsman though.

At some point the hierarchy must realize these rubbish selections have cost us dearly. How long does it take for that to sink in? The answer is more than 25 years, that much is clear. They can't seem to understand that a core of decent players, that themselves struggle at international level, can't possibly carry 3 or 4 players that are just repeatedly not cutting it. A real question is- how long are you going to give them before you give a better player an equally long opportunity?

Whittal's outburst against Mutendira was when they had a really strong side and he felt one passenger was too much. Of course that was perceived as racist. It may well have been, I wasn't there, but trust me he didn't have a problem with Olonga. I don't think he would have stuck his neck out on racial lines though. Now we have a situation where a lesser side has to carry a lot more dead weight.

Does it even occur to them what the better players think of all of this? You're asking guys to go into battle against world class players with two thirds of a team. If you're in a mediocre set up and you're not fielding your best team you're going to lose most times, and that's exactly what keeps happening.

When they all stand there singing the National Anthem they must be wondering about patriotism. If you know x, y answer z are not there on merit is it possible to try extra hard? 😂

It's exactly why our team has rarely had any cohesion.

Raza is interesting here, he's more than happy to keep punting for his mate Faraz, who doesn't need the money or the career, it's just a hobby for him.

So if you've got a captain and arguably your best player, pushing for a friend then can you rely on him to be unbiased in other selections? The simple answer to that is no. You can't be half pregnant.

Raza says all the right patriotic stuff but he plays the political game very well.

If he can get Faraz selected as an A category player in T10 he has undue influence. End of.

I know two guys that should be on the panel- Houghton and Brent. I see Zolsky has tried to shift the onus onto the coaching staff, saying that they had the ultimate say. If anyone believes that then I dunno.

They don't even pick the best black players.

There's pure favouritism even amongst the blacks - some talented black guys have never been given an opportunity for whatever reason whilst others get endless opportunities.

Also I don't like wishing a hard time upon anyone, but maybe if his family business went kaput then Faraz would finally stop being 'selected' 😂

Well Antum should be there because if he's going to qualify at some point he needs the exposure.

It's such a dodgy system they could just have easily picked him as an overseas though.

What didn't make sense was batting him at 9 or wherever it was. I would have thought they would have had more pull than that.

He's a better player than practically all of the Zim guys that got opportunities to bat. I was confused about that. I think he was in Raza's team as well.

I see they've announced dates for next year's T10. Clearly they made some money.

Well we don't really know how he plays T20, but that's never stopped these selectors making really obscure picks. They are convinced that if you can play one format then you're good at all of them.

Donald wrote: ↑Wed Oct 09, 2024 11:19 am

When does Antum qualify. Some have said early next year potentially. He would go straight into the main 20/20 qualifier against Uganda and namibia for me.

Just to be clear, again: If he is following the official ICC eligibility rules to the book, then he is still some time away. He first came to Zim in January 2023. If he had been in the country permanently since then, then he qualifies in January 2026 on residency. However, he has spent significant amounts of time outside of Zimbabwe and I doubt he fills the criteria for 'resident' and 'permanent home', especially for his first year. He could be ineligible until 2027in theory.

However we obviously know ZC or whatever authority have somehow gifted him a passport and he was selected for the India series. ICC intervened and blocked him.

Whether they relent at some point is anyones guess. The ICC are as corrupt as ZC so it's quite possible.

All matches will be shown on ICC TV.