Zimbabwe Senior National Discussion

[Chezza]

Thanks all!

Good win to get the NRR boost and escape Div 3.

Great to see the bowlers do so well. Bowling England out for just over 200 on sunny/flat and chasing down in a bit over 30 overs was excellent.

Now on to the T20s where we’re the games lowest ranked side, so hopefully we can do something similar there.

[Collywobbles]

And we’ve managed to do something at t20 level finally!
Congrats. Amazing performance

[epcguy]

Congrats gents...Zims are growing

[Chezza]

Yes apologies all for lack of updates in the T20s.

In summary we won 4/5, despite being outrated 4 of the 5 games. Despite topping the group, in game 3 we were bowled out for 60 by Kenya, and actually finished overall with a negative NRR

All-rounder Joseph "Richard" starred in game 5 with 90* to secure promotion to div 2 in the big win over Sri Lanka.

Now on to senior one day tour 2, where the aim is to remain in Div 2 (anything else is a bonus).

Once again we're going with our strongest squad under 30 (Joseph "Richard" and Hashim "Richard" 30.01 are exceptions as they are standout players for us).

Pitches look very favorable for seam with uneven, crumbling and hard

[epcguy]

Nice one well done.. Our tour was rubbish. Really lacking bowlers, no depth to squad

[Chezza]

Poor start for us in division 2

Game 1 vs Canada
Competitive loss. Canada rated 288k (us 260k odd)

Batted first on crumbling. Made only 150. Had them 100/5 but couldn’t take another wicket and lost by 5 wickets. Pzizer making 90 of our 150. The rest of the bats just terrible.

Game 2 v Scotland
Batters did better on uneven/windy. Posted 233. Scotland never in the chase. We won by 70 odd runs.

Game 3 v New Zealand
Batted first on the crumbling. We’re going good at 36/0. Then the standard FTP ME kicked in. New Zealand had 9 chances, took all 9/9. Bowled us out for 90. In reply we took only 2/4 and lost by 6 wickets with 25 odd overs to spare.

The mystery continues why our bats have good skills, but time and time again just keep failing. Brought in Andrianese, seam specialist to help up top this tour but has been as bad as the rest.

With the huge NRR loss in game 3 going to be tough to stay up.

[Chezza]

Relegated by -0.08 to Canada who were a 20k rated better team than us. Finished on 2 wins 3 losses. Disappointing to go down but a fairly decent tournament from us.

The batting overall just wasn’t good enough. Even in the final game v Pakistan we only posted 150 on sunny/uneven but the bowlers delivered to bowl them out for 112.

On the positive the Pakistan game was the 2nd time in 15 Sod matches we outrated the opposition!! The other occasion was against Sri Lanka in a game 5 as well.

A lack of AR options is a real issue. O’Problem is our only one going forward. Once 5 down we’re basically all out. Even Samkage who is expert summary batting averages 5 batting at 8.

With our batting not firing, we’re 1-2 good AR short from being consistently competitive.

[Collywobbles]

Bad lack. That’s ridiculously close.
The batting curse strikes again! It’s plagued the last 4 managers.

[casperj]

Got this guy in my affiliate. He was a U20 international and wondered if he might make it in seniors? Any thoughts?

player 2328376

Going to wait for another Power pop, and then try and get his Bowling up to W/C. From his wage I think he might be relatively close to W/C, but not sure ( in my head Wage = 20k is World Class but know it's not as simple as that).

[Chezza]

Got this guy in my affiliate. He was a U20 international and wondered if he might make it in seniors? Any thoughts?

player 2328376

Going to wait for another Power pop, and then try and get his Bowling up to W/C. From his wage I think he might be relatively close to W/C, but not sure ( in my head Wage = 20k is World Class but know it's not as simple as that).

He’s a good player and I think he will eventually make nats. Currently only accomplished power. Would probably need at least 2-3 (if not 4 power pops) to be in consideration. With accomplished power he’s around base summary exceptional bowling. 3 levels more of power will also make him a more useful tailender. Sturdy is a useful talent in nats too.

I would just stick to power training and forget about training bowling much further until at least exceptional power. The gains on bowling training at his age are very minimal.

Morton certainly is a good player and you did very well to buy him so cheap!

[casperj]

He’s a good player and I think he will eventually make nats. Currently only accomplished power. Would probably need at least 2-3 (if not 4 power pops) to be in consideration. With accomplished power he’s around base summary exceptional bowling. 3 levels more of power will also make him a more useful tailender. Sturdy is a useful talent in nats too.

I would just stick to power training and forget about training bowling much further until at least exceptional power. The gains on bowling training at his age are very minimal.

Morton certainly is a good player and you did very well to buy him so cheap!

Thanks. On reflection he is a level lower on Power than I'd normally like at his age. Going to train to Outstanding and then sneak in a few weeks of bowling training before he turns 28. Once he's got to 28 it'll probably be strength all the way. Should get him to Exceptional before he's 29.

Quick question, I know that training speed on primaries reduces as a player gets older. I've always presumed the speed reduces a little bit with each year of age (e.g. 25 slower than 24, 24 slower than 23 etc)? Is that correct or does it work more in a stepped fashion where thereare trigger ages where it slows a lot, and it's otherwise even in between (e.g slows between 23 & 24, but the same between 24-26)?

[Chezza]

Quick question, I know that training speed on primaries reduces as a player gets older. I've always presumed the speed reduces a little bit with each year of age (e.g. 25 slower than 24, 24 slower than 23 etc)? Is that correct or does it work more in a stepped fashion where thereare trigger ages where it slows a lot, and it's otherwise even in between (e.g slows between 23 & 24, but the same between 24-26)?

Yes you are correct training speeds decrease each year. Except power and endurance not at the same speed. Ie fielding trains at 26 about half the speed of a 1st year youth player. That’s why when a 26yr old has low fielding it’s basically too late to save them.

Power speed is actually best around 25/26/27 anyway. So that’s why a lot of managers train primaries hard until 24/25 before switching to power. Power still trains well at 28/29 too.

In terms of primary training it slows down so much after 23/24 and goes slower the higher the primary they are. For example my player Zeneca has been on world class technique for close to 2 seasons and is aged now 26.8. The jump to elite tech is taking forever, even with a top academy.

There’s been a lot of chat on the forums about power for spin bowlers. My thought is it’s a complete waste of time unless they can bat. That’s where the real benefit comes. Power is basically a multiplier in the game. So low power players are very limited. It’s often why 23/24 year old high primary players are pretty useless in Div 1. Spinners arent impacted by power. For example Zeneca was able to make it in the SA squad at 22 as a LWS.

[Madcarrot]

I just wanted to say thank you to Chezza for the hard work that you put into running Zimbabwe this past term. I know it's a tough gig and the community appreciates your hard work

[epcguy]

Cheers Chezza....and welcome Carrot

[Madcarrot]

I've created a discord channel for those who are interested.
It will be another way for managers to communicate, share ideas, encourage each other

https://discord.com/invite/GMs36JwvAJ