[ Poll ] Has Zimbabwe fallen to Kenya levels?

It will if nothing significantly changes after the next World Cup campaign, as the players that are papering over the cracks, Taylor, Raza, Jarvis, etc retire.

Think of Zimbabwe’s A team, guys 30 and under, and tell me with a straight face they are capable of beating the top associates, forget test teams.

The only way out I see is throwing good money at the Byrom and Welches.

Money that they may not be worth but, it is that or death.

They are where Kenya was at around 2007-2008. Kenya have fallen further into the abyss since then. They weren't even at the WCQ.

Zimbabwe won't fall that far, but they might fall to the level of a Canada or UAE.

Andybligzz wrote: ↑Fri Jun 21, 2019 3:53 am

Once we lose the core group of players listed above we are f***ed . Plain and simple

Yea there's nobody to come in, and we will be well and truly screwed

ZIMDOGGY wrote: ↑Thu Jun 20, 2019 1:53 pm

It will if nothing significantly changes after the next World Cup campaign, as the players that are papering over the cracks, Taylor, Raza, Jarvis, etc retire.

Think of Zimbabwe’s A team, guys 30 and under, and tell me with a straight face they are capable of beating the top associates, forget test teams.

The only way out I see is throwing good money at the Byrom and Welches.

Money that they may not be worth but, it is that or death.

I think, realistically, we're at the end of the road. Welch and company aren't ever coming back. A true Zim A team wouldn't beat anyone, you're right.

When I say "realistically", I mean of course there's things that could be done to make the situation better - but we all know those things won't happen; and on the rare occasion that they do happen then the people effecting positive change will be lost to the system due to the incompetence of those above.

Time to get some 17/18 year olds in the team and leave them there while there's still some decent senior players around to guide them.

The problem isn't that we can't find the next Flower or even the next Taylor, it's that we can't find the next Masakadza or Taibu.

brmtaylor.com admin wrote: ↑Fri Jun 21, 2019 10:38 am

ZIMDOGGY wrote: ↑Thu Jun 20, 2019 1:53 pm

It will if nothing significantly changes after the next World Cup campaign, as the players that are papering over the cracks, Taylor, Raza, Jarvis, etc retire.

Think of Zimbabwe’s A team, guys 30 and under, and tell me with a straight face they are capable of beating the top associates, forget test teams.

The only way out I see is throwing good money at the Byrom and Welches.

Money that they may not be worth but, it is that or death.

I think, realistically, we're at the end of the road. Welch and company aren't ever coming back. A true Zim A team wouldn't beat anyone, you're right.

When I say "realistically", I mean of course there's things that could be done to make the situation better - but we all know those things won't happen; and on the rare occasion that they do happen then the people effecting positive change will be lost to the system due to the incompetence of those above.

Time to get some 17/18 year olds in the team and leave them there while there's still some decent senior players around to guide them.

The problem isn't that we can't find the next Flower or even the next Taylor, it's that we can't find the next Masakadza or Taibu.

Regarding the boys. It is my educated opinion that there is just enough homesickness with those guys that if you threw a decent chunk of money at them, more than the average county wage, they will be back. ZC will need to throw the cash and make it worth it though.

You are dead right in your last sentence. We get excited about Burl and Musakanda, but they have both literally done nothing at international level. Gavin Ewing, from number 9 in the order did better than them at this sytage of his career 17 years ago.

From what I have gathered, both from observation and Googlys posts,is the junior setup is rotten from the core. It’s just dissipated and fizzled out in Zimbabwe. The kids who are producing are remnants of the colonial era (for lack of a better description) who employ coaches from another era to develop the talent with a view to going overseas.

No different from an American who loves Aussie rules footy who makes a genuine effort to watch online. The exception to the rule.

You can see it. Out last premium junior intake was the mid 00s. The late 00s has decent one offs like Jarvis and Chatara, but where are the kids of the last 5 years?

Do they even play in Zimbabwe ?

Whatever magical formula there used to be that made zim cricketers much better per capita than other countries has been dismantled.

There is like 500 cricketers in the country. 500 can only produce so much first class, let alone world class talent. It’s evened out now. And with the decaying foundation, it will erode below equity levels.

It’s all maths.

Like I said, throw cheese at the Welches and Byron’s and buy time for a miracle. Zimdoggy.

Yeah I think we are truly at the end of the road. Even if Byrom and Welch came back that wouldn't be enough. You need like 10-15 of those guys to truly have international-calibre depth. The biggest obstacle to turning things around is that not only is ZC a disaster, the country is a basketcase. Truly our best hope is some change in ICC and immigration rules which allows players to ply their trade overseas but still represent their homeland. Asking any seriously talented international cricketer to make a living just playing for Zimbabwe and in ZImbabwe is not realistic any more.

I think there’s still enough good players who could play for Zimbabwe that could keep them at a competitive level, whether not they can get them back is the question.

The SRC have suspended the board in brought in a good looking interim board IMO, as long as the ICC doesn’t suspend Zimbabwe I think finally there might be some Hope things could turn around.

As Googly has been saying for years cricket has been dying slowly in Zimbabwe and losing players at a regular rate as well, the cupboard is bare atm but hopefully things are ready to change.

Whenever I post a job online, there’s always a bunch of Zimbabweans applying from inside Zimbabwe. Completely ignorant of the tough visa laws.

Every man and his dog wants out.

In an ideal world an in-house academy would be good, but they just can’t organize it. There are many problems to having their own, not least of which is who heads it up?

They just don’t have the personnel. The next problem is that it’s honestly a waste of time and money if you don’t have quality youngsters to put into the program. It’s a big big problem going forward. It ideally needs to be a natural progression from U19 and there just aren’t 12 players worth investing in. You’ll also find youngsters still wanting to go to university and basically getting out of here because the country’s future is so grim. They’d really need to buy into Zim cricket having a future and a lot would have to change.

Assume DEB’s one year tenure as temp Chairman went well I just know how it rolls here and there would be more shenanigans at the next election in 2020. It could well be two steps forwards and one backwards. That old race card will be pulled within the month if DEB invites anyone back. He’s probably more likely to spend the next year tidying up the finances as opposed to be canning and recruiting because that’s going to be a war zone, how much of their findings will be for public consumption also remains to be seen.

They can’t afford getting rid of too many folk because the labour laws here are designed to rape the employer.

One wonders how much power they will actually have. Are they just heading up an investigation and a house cleaning in preparation for 2020 or will they have the power to make sweeping changes? The people who’ve provided whatever evidence they’ve got will be expecting jobs, I know a couple of them and they’re not ideal 😂

Whilst we all have high expectations it’s a monumental undertaking. Our cricket and our country are very broken, we have limited resources player-wise and personnel-wise and there’s going to have to be a lot of forgiveness and turning a blind eye to many things or we’re going to be left with very few people. Any unpalatable changes will just be undone and outvoted in 2020, that’s the nature of the beast. We’ll see in a year if people genuinely want change.

The first press statement from the interim board is going to be very interesting.

Aside from sorting out the finances I’d say the next most important thing is to try and get our national side at least winning games against Ireland, Netherlands, Scotland etc and not losing as badly against the member nations.

I hate saying this but a couple of our current guys are not shaping up. The international standard has improved massively and we have stagnated and I’m not sure we have guys here that can fill any shoes. There are some good players and you see endless posts of why hasn’t this guy or that one had a shot, but my honest opinion is that there’s no one locally that would do better.

If I were DEB I’d be counting the pennies and doing whatever it takes to allocate funds to set up a proper A side. I’d do whatever it takes to entice Matigimu, Lake, Muyeye, Byrom, Welch, Murray, Mazarabani and B Curran back here. They’re all very good players and whilst there’s no guarantee they could make the step up, of one thing I am absolutely certain, and that’s that they have a lot more potential than any of the guys that are in our current system. Out of Byrom, Curran, Welch or Muyeye you’ll find at least one guy who will be decent up front. Lake has huge potential as an all-rounder, Murray is a great keeper and Matigimu and Blessing are both good seamers and if these guys are well coached we might have some worthy players in a year or so. Theres no point in playing musical chairs with the other players here, they’re not good enough to make an impact in international cricket with any consistency, I’m sorry I’ve seen them and it’s just a fact. There’s also zero point in getting these new guys into our FC system, it’s not strong enough and it guarantees mediocrity. We have to find our next best team, including as many of these blokes I’ve mentioned and get them playing something better than our franchise system and hold our collective breath and see if a couple of them put their hands up.

Is Ben Curran eligible for Zimbabwe 🇿🇼 though

That was just an assumption I’d made. I’m not in the loop at all. He’s smart and this must have been planned for a while, and I don’t think anyone is going to admit to it publicly, least of all ICC. I might be wrong and ICC come out swinging in the next few days, but it’s doubtful. Obviously we all want to see something different, we can’t keep sliding downhill like this, there’s not much further to slide, everyone wants to see us turn a corner, it’s not enough for the previous board (how that rolls off the tongue!) to prove they’re keeping to their payment schedules by not paying out a cent towards what’s important, and that’s playing cricket.

I’m fairly sure he has a dual citizenship and hasn’t played any representative cricket there. He’s played a few FC and list A games is all. I’m not 100% sure the ICC ruling on that if he now wants to play here, our local rules definitely won’t be more onerous than ICC’s and I’m pretty sure you can just swap over. I’ll check it out.

There was a recent photo taken with the board being re elected. Out of all those guys, who’s the worst, except doc of course

I don’t know any of them, which means they probably don’t have a cricketing background or even have an interest in the game. I’d think they’re mostly yes men (and woman). Im not even sure what they do, business-wise. It’s possible they’re successful and I’m assuming have some sort of qualifications because that’s a requirement.