3rd T20I | Zimbabwe vs India | July 10, 2024

The old problem of only one guy stepping up at a time is still there for the most part. Today it was Myers.

The issue with the old Big 4 wasn't that they weren't good. They all had respectable stats individually...but they rarely performed collectively as a unit. How many times did all 4 of Taylor, Williams, Ervine, and Raza cross 30 in the same innings together? How many times did 2 of the 4 get past 50 in the same innings?

Bennett, Campbell, and Myers are all very young, so there is hope and time for them to right that wrong that plagued the Big 4. This is the new Big 3. Jury is out whether any of Madhevere, Marumani, Shumba, can join them. At this stage, Madande and Burl are better placed to be the 4th/5th than those 3.

I keep defending Maru but he's trying to play the modern way.

A comfortable knock is a run a ball until 20, 30 or 40 and then 2 boundaries to get strike rate to 120 and then everyone gets excited. That innings loses you the game 4 out of 5 times.

I'm reading some social media posts and every single one is praising Dion and Clive. I swear all they did was make the loss respectable. The rrr just steadily climbed whilst they were at the crease. Not one big over to bring it back a little.

Again I acknowledge the bowling was pretty good, but you have to at least go for it. You're honestly better off losing by 70 runs and keeping up with the rate than by 25 runs and letting it slide over by over. You're essentially deliberately batting the team to a respectable loss. I just don't get that at all. You have to try and play the shots and at least go down fighting. It's a thinly disguised early capitulation and I'm not sure what they're learning from that.

Some comments about Bennett being too aggressive? F%#& me, we're chasing 180, what do they want him to do? Go at 6 an over and lose us the game in the first 6?

You look at a scorecard after the fact and u see 60 off 40 and u think wow. But u watch the game and if the batter is 35 off 35 prior to that, as is his partner, and they've lost us the game. It's tough but it is what it is.

Are they going to be smarter about pitch prep next game?

It will give us a better chance.

If you're going to prepare a flat deck then play the shots!

If you don't have them then they need to learn them. Or try to.

Let's hope Salmon is on the same page.

Maybe in this upcoming NPL we need some flat decks and teams need to try and post 200 plus? Most t20 internarional decks are batter friendly.

If Campbell is going to be there as a pure finisher without bowling there are better options. Let's see him bowl. I think he's a smart bowler.. there's actually not a lot to lose, we're not competitive on a flat deck.

Again it will be so interesting to see who they drop if Knackers makes a guest appearance.

Their options seem to be Jonno, Wes or Maru. As usual the pressure builds exponentially with each poor outing.

I don't think they'll consider dropping Wellie, but it's an option.

Against the really good teams (like this one), Wes is looking increasingly like the likely one because he doesn't seem to have the big shots.

I give up on who should open, I have no idea.

Missed the match today - I was at Lord’s!! Brilliant day - can’t wait for Zimbabwe to play here next year although the talk is that it is going to be at Southampton.

Nice to check the scorecard and not see an absolute disaster like Sunday. Half competitive. Nice to see more runs for Dion and Clive.

Let’s hope we step up for the weekend.

As I’ve said I want Naqvi to open instead of one of the current openers but I suspect they will drop Campbell for him.

If you compare Myers to Marumani and Wes, the one thing he appears to be is mentally strong and a bit more streetwise, hence why he was the captain of the Under 19 side that includes Wes, Marumani and Shumba. After playing very little cricket in the UK for three years he has been able to score runs against a decent India side, that shows he has some promise.

Campbell looks a bit out of his depth at the moment, tough against this India side. I feel that Ryan Burl and Nick Welch may benefit from not playing this series as they would have also found it tough.

I'm 50/50 on Madande, the big thing which I think people have missed about him is that his wicket keeping has really improved in the last 3 series with very few errors and some good catches standing up to wicket.

We also have to consider that Wes, Marumani, Shumba, Madande, Bennett and Myers are all around 22 years old. They will bulk up which will help their power game and six hitting ability. I'd rather keep going with Marumani and Wes than have Kaia at the top of the order. Felt K-Long was treated a bit harshly as he did show the ability to get us off to a fast start.

Any news on Naqvi, have the ICC approved the paperwork?

secretzimbo wrote: ↑Wed Jul 10, 2024 7:10 pm

Missed the match today - I was at Lord’s!! Brilliant day - can’t wait for Zimbabwe to play here next year although the talk is that it is going to be at Southampton.

Nice to check the scorecard and not see an absolute disaster like Sunday. Half competitive. Nice to see more runs for Dion and Clive.

Let’s hope we step up for the weekend.

As I’ve said I want Naqvi to open instead of one of the current openers but I suspect they will drop Campbell for him.

I see Jamie Smith is now in the England side. I think he'll secure the keeper batsman spot at least for a decade and will make his way into the other formats. He can jam. Best back foot cover drive in the business.

Either ICC are not convinced about Knackers ticking the boxes, or they haven't received their brown envelope yet.

These 5 match series are unusual. We usually see less games and therefore not enough of a player. Then there's another 2 or three match series in 8 months and we still haven't seen enough of him, and then 4 years later "selectors" still haven't seen enough because they keep forgetting how he went last time.

5 matches, tick the box, then let's see someone else for a while. But then their benefactors will say "but India was tough opposition, give them another opportunity against lesser opposition"

Kaia will be back from injury and get at least one more game. We've seen this movie before. He's 31, averages 15 at 104%. Good technique, handy player, but let's move on from him in this format. They can keep him on central contract so the family doesnt get upset but let's develop a younger player with a higher ceiling, the bell is tolling.

zimfan1 wrote: ↑Wed Jul 10, 2024 7:18 pm

If you compare Myers to Marumani and Wes, the one thing he appears to be is mentally strong and a bit more streetwise, hence why he was the captain of the Under 19 side that includes Wes, Marumani and Shumba. After playing very little cricket in the UK for three years he has been able to score runs against a decent India side, that shows he has some promise.

Campbell looks a bit out of his depth at the moment, tough against this India side. I feel that Ryan Burl and Nick Welch may benefit from not playing this series as they would have also found it tough.

I'm 50/50 on Madande, the big thing which I think people have missed about him is that his wicket keeping has really improved in the last 3 series with very few errors and some good catches standing up to wicket.

We also have to consider that Wes, Marumani, Shumba, Madande, Bennett and Myers are all around 22 years old. They will bulk up which will help their power game and six hitting ability. I'd rather keep going with Marumani and Wes than have Kaia at the top of the order. Felt K-Long was treated a bit harshly as he did show the ability to get us off to a fast start.

Actually Myers didn't play many WC games. He had something weird go wrong, I think they were even suspecting a heart issue? Might be wrong. That was the WC where Wes played very well with bat and ball.

Ya Myers has a lot of potential. Looks a bit iffy against good spin but a lot to work with. Thinks his game as well.

tawac wrote: ↑Thu Jul 11, 2024 6:00 am

Madande and Myers were brilliant definitely the first two names on the team list. Can't fault them for turning a lost game. The rest of the team is just letting everyone on down. They really need to start stringing up a a few scores. Campbell jus hasn't shown up at all.

U see, another guy bigging that partnership up. They hung in there, gained some valuable experience and slowly lost us the game, which we were going to lose anyway because we'd run out of batters.

They should have played some shots earlier and tried to stay in touch with the RR.

Myers in particular showed he had some in reserve because he went after it when we needed 12 a ball. Limited merit in that.

We're worrying about how much we lose by instead of worrying about strike rates. That's the game, not averages.