Under 19s thread. Players and under 19 matches

andrewn9 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 25, 2021 3:22 pm

ZIMDOGGY wrote: ↑Sat Dec 25, 2021 2:17 pm

andrewn9 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 25, 2021 12:00 am

I've been following English cricket for over 30 years, and in that time there's always been players born in other countries who've found themselves in the England team. 7 out of 11 must have been a one off if you've remembered correctly cos it wouldn't regularly be that high. As an Englishman I wouldn't want it to get out of hand but I accept it represents a modern, first world, modern country. But again I wouldn't class players like Strauss, Prior, Stokes, Roy, etc as 'imports'. They all learnt their cricket in the UK from a young age.

I will take a stab and say it was 2013.

I remember thinking Biy Craig kieswetter who is the episode of the non English Englishman.

He went to celebrate with SA after they won matches in the WC. Stayed with the saffees to party etc.

Yeah, that's fair enough about Kieswetter. Afrikaner (and Scottish heritage) and qualified through residency. As I've said though, the overseas born England players are a mixed bunch, there's no identikit version.

Yeah I agree. It wasn’t a good look though.

https://www.herald.co.zw/zim-under-19-b ... rld-cup-2/

I agree, bracing for impact is hardly an optimistic headline. 😂

The bigger teams have certainly had way more exposure than ours, not sure what prep the associate sides have had though.

If we're going to stand any chance of improving our cricket we need to act like a full member nation and give players every opportunity. Don't we get specific u19 funding from ICC? Were we the only team to be affected by Covid? As usual there's no accountability.

ZC seem content that they appear to have Shumba and Madhevere from the last squad who are showing promise, and that's premature. If we play most of our fixtures this coming season we will soon have a fair idea of their potential. If they come up short theorerically there should be some alarm because there's no-one else coming through after this lot. I say theoretically because we're hosting the 2027 WC which means the panic will only set in after that. Survival in the interim is assured.

We will be back to musical chairs with the same old guys. We need to try and continue to improve our player base and you're only doing that by replacing mediocre players that have been clogging up the system for years.

The squad has departed for the West Indies, via the US, this morning after the whole touring party all returned negative Covid tests.

Donald wrote: ↑Sun Dec 26, 2021 1:08 pm

Tinah09 wrote: ↑Sun Dec 26, 2021 2:44 am

This is one of the biggest doom and gloom interviews you’ll see out there. Way to motivate your squad Prosper! “ the guys are inexperienced” yeah, no s**t! But it’s not like they are facing teams with hardened test veterans!! Plus he should have pushed for more U19 kids in that Namibia tour. He is already using lack of tours, lack of exposure, Covid-19 as excuses before a ball has been bowled. This is premium grade pessimism, even if you have the best XI players in the world, a defeatist, pessimistic attitude like this drains all the energy and fight from the team

Correct and why wasn't the likes of welch wohulter and Saul playing in the recent domestic one day competition. They would have gained a lot Facing the likes of muzarabani and Chatara.

I hope proper never goes for a motivational speaker or sports psychologist job 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Apparently the plan was for them to play the resting franchise side that week, which I gather started off ok but then some of the franchise players weren't pitching up or were being genuinely "rested". The worrying part was that it didn't really matter because the u19's were getting well beaten by the second string teams.

What's going to bite is that these games were probably boozer league friendly with very little at stake and no needle, which actually makes it a completely different game. Anyway they're in the deep end now so let's hope they all take a teaspoon of cement and are able to raise their games, which sounds like what needs to happen.

Going by ACC U19 games I think India this time are a bit weak and Pakistan, Afghanistan are strong. So Zimbabwe have got a tough group again.

But then other groups are not easy either.

Tinah09 wrote: ↑Tue Dec 28, 2021 6:38 am

I think this forum was too hard on Zim U19s shambolic preparations for the WC. SA U19 team had the same type of preparations, playing against domestic franchises and getting their asses whooped on a weekly basis. Covid-19 messed up everyone’s plans and preps, not just Zimbabwe U19s

I think personally because we are s**t, we need to try harder.

How do we get our edge?

Yeah Bangladesh U-19s played just the one bilateral series vs Sri Lanka, and got whitewashed 0-5 at that. Playing in the ad hoc Asia Cup currently which is just a warmup for the World Cup and not really a stand alone tournament.

ZIM under-19 team can't be much more under-prepared than Afghanistan or Sri Lanka or even Bangladesh (who are usually very well prepared unlike national team).