Zimbabwe Senior National Discussion

[Collywobbles]

Top win today against a higher ranking Ireland side.
Hopefully the team can keep it going for the rest of the matches

[Chezza]

Tour 2 summary

We finished with 2 wins and 3 losses with the younger side and got off the bottom of the one day rankings. Now 17th

Highlight of the tour was the win in game 3 over division champions Kenya when we were outrated by 21k. Kumangozi performed very well in his two games and he’s certainly going to be a very valuable Nat team player in future.

Negatives were that while the younger bowlers performed much better than the older counterparts from previous tours, the younger batters were just as poor. Mlambo was good in game 1 and Hashim "Richard" had a great tour. But the other boundary hitters all didn’t fire. In game 4 we really should have chased down Canada’s 170 but a late collapse saw us fall 20 runs short. Had we won that game we likely would have promoted, so that was disappointing.

As Epcguy has touched on, the most critical aspect to Zimbabwe’s long term turnaround is the youth pulls, in strong academies. My return from 2 deluxe academies so far has been horrendous. So far I’ve had 16x 500 wagers 1x 700 wager and 1x 1000 wager (who had dreadful fielding and tech and sold for 2k). All not even club level worthy. So fair to say my shocking pulls have continued with Zimbabwe but I’ll keep trying and hopefully get a few eventually. Currently we have no future Nat prospects for fast bowlers in the 21-25 age group so it’s a big concern going forward.

[epcguy]

Onwards and upwards pal.....at least we are going upwards

[Collywobbles]

Tour 2 summary

We finished with 2 wins and 3 losses with the younger side and got off the bottom of the one day rankings. Now 17th

Highlight of the tour was the win in game 3 over division champions Kenya when we were outrated by 21k. Kumangozi performed very well in his two games and he’s certainly going to be a very valuable Nat team player in future.

Negatives were that while the younger bowlers performed much better than the older counterparts from previous tours, the younger batters were just as poor. Mlambo was good in game 1 and Hashim "Richard" had a great tour. But the other boundary hitters all didn’t fire. In game 4 we really should have chased down Canada’s 170 but a late collapse saw us fall 20 runs short. Had we won that game we likely would have promoted, so that was disappointing.

As Epcguy has touched on, the most critical aspect to Zimbabwe’s long term turnaround is the youth pulls, in strong academies. My return from 2 deluxe academies so far has been horrendous. So far I’ve had 16x 500 wagers 1x 700 wager and 1x 1000 wager (who had dreadful fielding and tech and sold for 2k). All not even club level worthy. So fair to say my shocking pulls have continued with Zimbabwe but I’ll keep trying and hopefully get a few eventually. Currently we have no future Nat prospects for fast bowlers in the 21-25 age group so it’s a big concern going forward.

The quicks at that age group scare me a bit.
Arubi & Mastruet look the best, Trowse has been ruined with awful training and Madhuku is the only one who might make it.
It’s a very small pool

[Chezza]

The quicks at that age group scare me a bit.
Arubi & Mastruet look the best, Trowse has been ruined with awful training and Madhuku is the only one who might make it.
It’s a very small pool

Given FTP heavily favours bowlers I think all of us pulling Zimbabwe should start pulling seam bowlers and hoping for the best. A good fast bowler could become a 8 season senior Nat player in future, given the generation of no fast bowlers coming up.

[Eepan]

The quicks at that age group scare me a bit.
Arubi & Mastruet look the best, Trowse has been ruined with awful training and Madhuku is the only one who might make it.
It’s a very small pool

Given FTP heavily favours bowlers I think all of us pulling Zimbabwe should start pulling seam bowlers and hoping for the best. A good fast bowler could become a 8 season senior Nat player in future, given the generation of no fast bowlers coming up.

I think there is a risk of everyone pulling seam bowlers, we take away from other areas, just looking at the latest comments in my pulls thread shows 1 of a couple of talented fasties making their way through

Apologies, as it comes across like managers are saying "well actually" to you alot, but as I check the talent coming through and highlight the talented pulls,

More zim pulls are always welcome, but there are a few sparks forcing their way through

[Chezza]

No chance everyone starts pulling seam but a couple more teams going seam pulls could certainly help the pool. The other thing with pulling seam is the majority with any skills are generally mediums which doesn’t change much anyway.

At the youth level things have definitely started to turn, but this will take a long while to start seeing results at the senior levels but it’s a good start.

What I’ve found unusual about Zimbabwe at the senior level is the amount of decently trained batsman across all age groups but a huge lack in bowling.

[Eepan]

No chance everyone starts pulling seam but a couple more teams going seam pulls could certainly help the pool. The other thing with pulling seam is the majority with any skills are generally mediums which doesn’t change much anyway.

At the youth level things have definitely started to turn, but this will take a long while to start seeing results at the senior levels but it’s a good start.

What I’ve found unusual about Zimbabwe at the senior level is the amount of decently trained batsman across all age groups but a huge lack in bowling.

I see, thank you for explaining as i lacked the understand, ill read through this / continue to update pools on my 3rd season

[Chezza]

Tour 1
The Div 3 seniors tour has started, we picked our strongest possible squad of 29yr olds and younger for this tour. We’ve started with a competitive 15 run loss to a very strong South Africa on crumbling/sunny.

SA posted 215 which was always too many, our bats put up a good fight to make 200 against Zeneca and co. Started very strong in the chase, before falling over at the end. Jason Nye the best of the bats.

Canada next up on green. Hopefully we can chalk up our first win today.

[Chezza]

Game 2

Good win against a stronger Canada side by 46 runs.

Game was won by the bats, who posted 269 on green/sunny. Best performers were Hashim "Richard" and Phil Pfizer who both hit half centuries.

With the ball they were 153/8 but somehow the tail shepherded one of the bats and they got 223. So no huge NRR boost but good win nonetheless. O’Problem the best with the ball with 5 wickets.

On to game 3 today, taking on Ireland who have been struggling a bit recently. Would be great to overtake someone in the rankings

[Chezza]

Game 3
After not setting orders in first 2 games Ireland decided to against us and won. So looks like we’ll be 18th for a while longer

After they won the toss and batted we had them 70/5 but their 9k tail got them up to 213 on the crumbling.

In reply we were going well again, with opener Jason Nye hitting 90. But in typical Zimbabwe fashion we completely imploded with none of the other bats getting more than 11. And we fell 43 runs short.

Next up where hopefully we can get our second win.

[Chezza]

Game 4
Team made 144 v Netherlands on the crumbling pitch. Looked about 25 short, but our bowlers finally had a good day Tsvangirai and Samkange 4 wickets each to win by 20 runs.

Final game of tour today against a strong England side on a flat pitch. A win and likely finish of 3rd. A loss and probably finish 4th in the group.

[Collywobbles]

Massive congratulations in leading the team to 2nd

[eagles123]

congrats guys, too good for us today.

[TopManager]

Well done guys