Club Cricket 2021-22 (Vigne Cup etc)

Really good to see young Schonken playing some club cricket. This lad is going to be a quality leggie if he keeps it up.

Some alarmingly low scores in these Vigne Cup matches. I just don't see how the average team scores shouldn't be 250 plus. Just go at 4 an over, rotate strike, have some wickets in hand and step it up a bit in the last 15 and there's your 250 without much risk- a defendable total. No-one seems to know how to construct an innings. Even chasing a big total you take it deep and then play some shots. You see guys chasing 250 only and if they're 25-0 after 8 you can guarantee there's some panic stricken big shots coming. Players need just as much maths lessons as they do coaching. Big players don't worry about 9 an over with 4 to go, these guys bring out the half baked T20 shots when the required run rate creeps up to 3.8 an over.

Googly wrote: ↑Mon Mar 21, 2022 8:20 am

secretzimbo wrote: ↑Sat Mar 19, 2022 6:02 pm

Googly wrote: ↑Sat Mar 19, 2022 5:10 pm

Whats up with u16 and u19 club cricket in Byo?

Is that coz there's no school cricket or are the boys ultra keen? Here in Harare the school season is over already, I'm not sure they played more than 3 games 😂 😂 😂

You won't get a Harare schoolboy to play club cricket unless there's a bottle of vodka at the end of it and there wasn't a party the night before, which hasn't happened in the last ten years.

I hear it's been pretty well received by kids and parents. The quality of cricket has certainly been mixed at times, but well organised and the kids have enjoyed being part of teams outside of school. There's sponsorship behind it and the main Tuskers coaches and senior players had some sessions with each team in Jan before the whole thing started.

There's the Bakers Inn leagues in Harare which happen most weekend, although I think mostly age 16 and under. And that's pay-to-play and not cheap; so that excludes quite a few kids I suppose.

That's great news indeed. Ya I don't know much about the Baker's Inn initiative, long may that last too.

One of the main reasons for the decline in school cricket has been the lack of fixtures and that's largely as a result of the third term now being cut short because players want to focus on exams, so that cuts half the term out. Then you get to first term and rain messes up fixtures then they cut that term short for athletics and pre-season rugby.

Winter cricket is the solution!

St George's, Peter House and St John's and occasionally Falcon have this first term pre-season tour to SA these last few years, which is about as much cricket as they get.

It's good and it isn't. It's good in as much as they're playing against decent SA school sides, but these days it's really highlighting how far behind we are slipping each and every year. If it was backed up by some decent school cricket locally so we actually improved so the following year we could measure it would be a great thing. It has almost become a box ticking exercise- school tour done and dusted, no complaining parents, kids coaches and parents had a nice time, nothing to see here! We need to resurrect local school cricket somehow!!

I missed my own point here- it's not a pre-season tour, its actually the whole season!!! They play more games in that week than they do for the rest of the season. It's almost their year's cricket basically bundled into one week.

It's a massive problem. Covid was a convenient excuse to not bother with schools cricket for a couple of years but that won't hold going forward. St George's were hammered in SA last month, St John's didn't do much better. Big problems at school level, and I'm not sure what the realistic, feasible solution is going to be short-term.

Oh well, maybe we can all just play in this dodgy T10 league that keeps being mooted. ED met with the Indian dude recently. Sounds horrific. Streak and BT should have waited - there will be far more money to launder, loot, fix and gamble with at this tournament 😂 😂 😂

https://allafrica.com/stories/202203210171.html

"One of the billionaires is Mr Mulk who is coming to launch T10 cricket."

😂

If you want to become a Billionaire in Zim then start with 2 Billion 😂 😂

A few guys have succeeded but most wealthy folk who think they can come here and turn the place upside down with mega deals generally get spanked and scuttle off with their tails between their legs.

If this T10 is so fantastic why hasn't it kicked off right in his home turf? T4 is more cricket than we're playing now, but there's something that just doesn't quite add up. 😂

Our guys aren't going to attract a world wide audience so is it the venue he's after? That doesn't make sense either.

Googly, did you hear about this proposal to re-establish the national academy or a high performance centre of some kind? I hear it was presented at that last board meeting and is supposed to be and up and running next summer. I don't know where it will be or what form it will take but it's a 'priority' apparently. (and rightly so).

There was an idea floated at the end of last year that ZC were going to pay to send cohorts of young players to and partly fund AC's and Elton's places instead, but now it sounds like they are trying to go with their own in-house thing again. Interesting to see how it goes.

No I haven't. They've been talking about this for years, but nothing ever happens. It doesn't add up. There's all these other "Academies" that are based where exactly and with what facilities and which staff and now there's talk of a national academy which will be based where and with which staff? You take the 2 best players from each of these other supposed Academies and put them in a national academy and the regional ones now don't have a chance of producing a national cricketer. The logical place is Country Club because you surely need an indoor, bowling machines, grass nets and a ground to legitimately start thinking about hanging up an Academy sign at the gate. I don't think ZC own a single bowling machine? The Astra nets at our premier ground are in embarrassing tatters, the $5 bucks coaches were supposed to pay for their use and upkeep disappeared into someones pocket 😂 😂 ZC won't fund 5 rolls of Astra, its a few hundred bucks, and they want to set up a national academy?? I'm sorry but there's neither the will nor the ability to make this happen effectively. We're still waiting for lights at Sports Club ffs. It's been a decade and they're in storage and probably obsolete 😂

I had heard that the AC Academy is supposed to be getting some young English players this coming season and they'll presumably be paying Queen Elizabeth's so how much room will there be for Zim lads? There is actually a window now in winter but I don't see it happening. And now with Gary Brent being busy with the Ladies team who now runs the AC Academy?

He'd be run off his feet doing both and probably contractually not allowed to? It did occur to me, and I'm sure I'm not the only one 😂 that with him now the full time ladies coach there's now an under utilised world class facility! Owning a fancy indoor facility is about as perilous as having a world class wheat crop in the ground one month before elections 😂

There are not enough level 3 coaches to man a single Academy, in fact aside from GB is there another level 3 coach in Zim? And are there enough good young players good enough to justify sticking through a national Academy for a season let alone the plethora of others? There's maybe 4 or 5 young guys worth spending quality time on and the truth is they're probably good enough to play actual franchise cricket at the same time, so will they get to do both? And another truth is most of the existing established players could well do with some quality Academy time themselves.

Some broken nets and guys playing some half arsed cricket under minimal supervision does not an academy make.

This attempt at volume makes people believe that things are happening, but if you want to produce a quality cricketer he needs to have proper facilities and proper coaching and then some quality game time. Anything less is just a waste of time and a lame box ticking exercise and depending on how much cash they actually do spend it's a waste of that as well.

We've done years of this half baked stuff, how many more years need to be wasted before a proper world class system is put in place and run effectively and professionally? We produce a tiny handful of young players that can make it and when they're not well managed they leave or rapidly become run of the mill vaguely disinterested underpaid franchise players not capable of performing on a world stage.

Googly wrote: ↑Mon Mar 21, 2022 12:31 pm

If you want to become a Billionaire in Zim then start with 2 Billion 😂 😂

A few guys have succeeded but most wealthy folk who think they can come here and turn the place upside down with mega deals generally get spanked and scuttle off with their tails between their legs.

If this T10 is so fantastic why hasn't it kicked off right in his home turf? T4 is more cricket than we're playing now, but there's something that just doesn't quite add up. 😂

Our guys aren't going to attract a world wide audience so is it the venue he's after? That doesn't make sense either.

This offer of a cricket stadium fills me with foreboding.

I'll almost guarantee they're going to revisit this ridiculous idea of one in Vic Falls. Just imagine millions being spent on a stadium that will be used once every two years for cricket and once every 4 years for political rallies.

That money would resurrect a dozen clubs countrywide, maybe 4 more in high density areas, would build and kit out half a dozen indoor training centers and would be a Godsend. Instead there's going to be some major leverage being attempted, a scramble on for crazy building and civils contracts and just skullduggery of the worst kind. I see Sir Wicknell Civils and Engineering (Pvt) Ltd bidding for at least the solar work.

Why would this guy specifically target Zim for his T10 venture? Beware of strangers bearing gifts, but don't look a gift horse in the mouth. 😂 Take your pick.

Found the Bulawayo 2nd League Standings:

Image

Couple of wickets for 16-year-old Saxon Pettican on his senior debut for Queen's in 1st League today

This weekend's fixtures:

Vigne 1st League

Old Hararians 1 Vs Takashinga 2 @ OH

Manyame Vs Takashinga 1 @ OH (B Ground)

Gladiators Vs Royal @ Prince Edward

Rainbow 1 Vs Uprising @ Prince Edward

Vigne 2nd League

Harare Sports Club Vs Easterns @ OH (Saturday)

Glenshire Vs Centurions @ OH (B Ground) (Saturday)

Alex Sports Club Vs Bakers Inn Rangers @ Alex

Uhuru Vs Old Hararians 2 @ Prince Edward

Bulawayo 1st League

Amakhosi 1 Vs Bulawayo Poly @ BAC

Queen's Sports Club 1 Vs Bulawayo Athletic Club 1 @ QSC

Midlands League

Kindle CC Vs Kwekwe Sports Club @ Kwekwe (Saturday)

Redcliff CC Vs Mbizo @ Kwekwe

Gweru Sports Club Vs MSU Pirates @ Gweru

Mash West League

Rimuka Vs Norton Country Club @ Kadoma

Tabatana Vs Kadoma Sports Club @ Lomagundi College

Mash Central T20

Bindura Country Club Vs Chipindura @ Bindura (Saturday)

Wadzanai Vs Shamva @ Bindura (Saturday)

ZRP Bindura Vs SOS CC @ Bindura

Buse Vs Shamva @ Bindura

Nice to see club cricket happening across the country.

Another 150+ score for Marumani today. Not many guys score 100s at club level in Zim so we must take some hope from his recent form.

The kid can clearly play. That shot he played against Hasan Ali over mid wicket for 6 proved it. He just needs time, simple

Vigne round-up

1st League

Takashinga 1, 246-7 (Zvidzai 94, I Kaia 54, Majoka 31; Ncumani 2-37, Mutendi 2-38) def Manyame Heliz, 240-9 (Mbangani 50, Chataira 46, Bryan Zhawi 34; Mufudza 3-17, Chivanga 3-34) by 3 wickets.

Gladiators, 275ao (Chikuwa 84, Shumba 33, Muzondo 32; R Patel 4-34, Schonken 2-61) def Royal, 113ao (R Patel 27; Muzondo 4-36, Shumba 3-6) by 162 runs.

Old Hararians 1, 275-7 (Ali Hamid 127, Zaheer 34, M Welch 29; Takodza 2-53) def Takashinga 2, 82ao (Takodza 21; Dzikiti 8-26) by 193 runs.

Uprising, 316ao (Marumani 164, Jongwe 27; Jakiel 2-45, Falao 2-40, Brighton Zhawi 2-46) def Rainbow 1, 163ao (Shereni 28, Mudzinganyama 26; Hondo 4-22, W Masakadza 3-18) by 153 runs.

2nd League

Glenshire 100ao (Chiwara 28; Chinyadza 4-20, Naga Reddy 2-15) def Centurions, 68ao (Chienvhu 5-20, Nyamapfeni 3-16) by 32 runs.

Easterns, 242ao (Chamburuka 94, D Moyo 31; Joseph 4-35, Utumbe 3-59) def HSC, 125ao (Girish D 29, Shahid 26; Toro 3-38, Mrehwa 2-18) by 117 runs.

Bakers Inn Rangers, 115-8 (Johnson 35, D Patel 30; Tekere 5-37) def Alex SC, 111ao (Hussain 52, Zafar 24; Van Zyl 5-18, Martell 2-17) by 2 wickets.

Uhuru, 232-7 (Muzerengi 63, Mutizwa 53; Anas Aqil 2-45) def Old Hararians 2, 185ao (Anas Aqil 63, Hammad Aqil 27; Simbi 3-12, Mangwiro 3-30) by 47 runs.

Is that not a typo?

8-26 Dzikiti

That must be some sort of unbreakable record.

Hamid, Welch and Marumani standing out as tha players of the season so far.

And ya Googly, idk how good the HMCA’s record keeping is from years gone by, but that has to be one of the best bowling performance of all time in league cricket here. According to the app his first name is ‘Talent’ 😂 which seems quite appropriate!

sloandog wrote: ↑Sun Apr 03, 2022 8:46 pm

The kid can clearly play. That shot he played against Hasan Ali over mid wicket for 6 proved it. He just needs time, simple

I don’t know why ZC can’t just send talented niggas like this to a top country’s facility for a few months to pick up in some alternative and additional coaching. It’s surely not that expensive.