Hi TopManager,
I appreciate your post as it's very in depth and has some differing views to me, so I'll address them here:
A few thoughts...
1) The first point is that there are still 3 SOD tours left before WC qualification is decided. Whilst not easy, I think the intent should be to get promoted at the next SOD tour with the strongest possible squad. Whilst Zimbabwe haven't done well thus far, achieving 3 wins (with a promotion) is possible and would make WC qualification look more achievable. I think as long as there is a possible chance of WC qualification, you should go for it - it's way to early to be thinking about the team's long-term prospects at the expense of short-term success. Playing Kamungozi (and players like him) will just make WC qualification impossible, even though there remains a small, plausible chance.
Disagree on this first point. While you are correct there are three tours left, we're the bottom team in Div 3 currently. Even if we pulled a miracle and somehow beat three other Div 3 teams to get to Div 2, we'd still be on zero qualification points. Somehow from there we'd need to win a further 3 games in Division 2, just to stay up. Staying in Div 2, still wouldn't get us close to qualifying. It's not like we're 13th or 14th ranked. I've taken over an 18th ranked side and we're still 18th ranked.
Where you have a fair argument is whether we should still be picking our best bowlers which are these guys:
On the most recent Div 3 tour on seam friendly pitches this is how they performed:
Shingayi Mzema lf 6 wickets at 24.17
Tinashe Maraire lfm 5 wickets at 33.60
Makabongwe Muzadzi 4 wickets at 43.00
Wiriranai Mofokeng rws 4 wickets at 45.50
Natie Bromley lfm 4 wickets at 30.25
Guy McKenna rm 3 wickets at 35.00
Andre Krige rf 3 wickets at 62.00
Joseph "Richard" rfm 3 wickets at 48.33
Mathew Frank rfm 2 wickets at 57.50
Now Mzema is nearly 32 and he is still our second best seamer. Frank 32, Bromley is over 30, the others 28/29. The biggest issue with these guys is they lack talents to get any triggered wickets. Our bowlers are the main problem and there is no depth there. Maraire is 26, the rest are 28/29 and older.
Our bats weren't much better:
Popeye Colreavy 85 runs at 28.33
Roelof Willsmore 78 runs at 26.00
Johnson Mangwende 45 runs at 15.00
Jimmy Marimo 41 runs at 13.67
Mathew Frank (AR) 24 runs at 12.00
Guy McKenna (AR) 21 runs at 7.00
Jason Nye 12 runs at 3.00
Natie Bromley (AR) 10 runs at 3.33
Only Schumann 70 runs @ 56, O'Leary 118 runs @ 63 and Mlambo 216 runs @ 108 performed. Mlambo has been retained and there's a fair argument to keep Schumann and O'Leary in. However, as for the rest averaging 20s in Div 3 nats isn't going to win games regardless. Where we have depth is batting, so a good opportunity to give the next rung a go.
2) You talk a lot about developing players. How practically do you do this? You don't decide the player's academies, you can influence a player's training programme regardless of whether or not they are in the national squad, the only real influence you have is on experience. Moreover, in my experience, the benefit gained from playing a handful of internationals to increase experience is quite marginal - therefore, I don't think a long-term strategy like this will pay the dividends you believe.
This is a very fair point and I won't disagree with you here as there are no future guarantees of success. While I have done some follow-up on managers with players of potential nats, we are unable to be able to track who is in the best academies. What we can flag is experience and fielding being low for age as these are the two areas that get left behind most often. What I can also say is by looking at a players skills you can ascertain if they are in a decent enough academy. Looking at Kamungozi for example its clear you have him in a strong academy as his bowling skills are the highest for someone his age.
Manager 2001 (Newball Slappers), has sadly disappeared but not gone bot as he was a pavilion member. This has taken a large chunk of the quality pool out of the 24-27 year old Zimbabwe age group as these future nats haven't been trained properly. Wouldn't have been an issue for Australia, but for us it's been a disaster. As nat manager, I kind of always hope that the future Zimbabwe nats end up at a team like Direwolves, Jacksons Barbers or your club VVV, as you know they will be trained well and get the right experience. That can't be said for a number of other players, so it is a bit of a risk bringing in some guys earlier. My two club teams both have deluxe academies, so when I next rebuild I'm hoping to be able to pick up a batch of future nat quality Zimbabwians and help improve the future nat pool. Unfortunately I'm stuck with 3 of South Africa's best currently
3) If you were to play young players such as Kamungozi (now or even in a season or two), he along with others would make the Zimbabwe team very uncompetitive. Zimbabwe would likely start the next WC qualification cycle in division 3, making the prospect of world cup qualification (and making use of those experience gains) much more difficult than it needs to be,
I don't agree playing Kamungozi (now or even in a season or two) will make us any less competitive. Yes expert experience isn't great, but he's now exceptional bowling summary and with Old Ball Bowler talent he is likely to perform just as well if not better than the current lot of players. The other thing which is missed a bit with younger players is that having a couple can help with fatigue on later tour days. While a number of younger players have been added to the squad, some of them like Derek Jackson are still a while off and the core of our touring teams will still be 27/28 years of age.
Also as a reference with Kamungozi, great work on training such a quality player. For comparison, our best right arm finger spinner is currently Austin Ballans. He's 29 and does have a talent, with world class summary. Now he's a handy player. But I can guarantee he would not be in any other nat side. But we are so short in bowling that he's made the team recently, even though he still is only at outstanding experience. With better experience he would be close to elite summary now and that would have made him a far better proposition right now.
You may think Nothing else has worked, we need to shake things up. Whilst I understand the logic, after only two tours, any such conclusion is premature, pick your best players, review the tactics, and be comfortable with losing some games with an unbalanced squad,
This is partially true, however I'd just like to reinforce that the full intention is to win every match. However, given the situation we're in if I have the option of picking players who are younger, have a talent but are one summary level behind the old guys I will be selecting the younger player.
I'd like to finish by saying you are one of the managers that is keeping Zimbabwe going into the future, so from me personally thankyou for your great work with the training on these players. All four of your Zimbabwe seniors are future nats and your youth squad is one of the best in the game, so well done!
As always happy to discuss further in here and I'm always happy to hear differing opinions. I was involved recently in the team that helped turn around the fortunes of the Sri Lankan youths and while Zimbabwean seniors is going to take longer, I'm very keen to give it a good go.