Lets Separate the Wheat from the Chaff at ZC

By Perkins-Tino Bare

As Zimbabwe Cricket still recovers from the recent humiliating loss to Afghanistan which left us all stunned, it really still needs too be seen whta the way forward is for Zimbabwe Cricket considering that we have reached rock-bottom with the bulk of our players also slowly reaching the end of their playing days.
The current Chevrons squad is comprised mainly of players from the U/19 team that sparkled back in 2004. This had all the names in it Brendan Taylor, Elton Chigumbura, Craig Ervine, Tinashe Panyangara and Sean Williams. However looking at that squad it has not been able to fully develop into world beaters. From that squad its only Brendan Taylor (whom we lost) and Sean Williams who were able to develop into good cricketers. In this past series Sean Williams was fighting a sole battle and that is just a testament to that fact.
The fact therefore is this is certainly not an issue of talent in our doldrums but the structure in itself does no allow our players to fully develop into good cricketers. If the players take it upon themselves to train hard and fully develop into a decent cricketer we still end up losing the player to other countries. Over the past few years we have lost a lot of players with Kyle Jarvis being arguably the most painful one and i don`t really need to got through that long list. 
This in itself is not really an issue of commitment as it is sheer logic that leads the players to make these decisions. In order for Zimbabwe Cricket to be able to keep their players to themselves they should therefore show the same level of commitment that is being shown by the players themsleves. All ZC needs to do is to believe in these boys not necessarily in them being in the national team setup but to just support the lads in what they do. Right now we have a case whereby a lot of talent is being lost as per the lucrative cricketing scholarships being offered by England. Now the question therefore is if Zimbabwe Cricket is seeing this what are they doing to ensure that the young talent is not being eroded as it is. Its  quite sad that most of the boys don`t necessarily end 
up playing for the ECB but they then have to settle for county cricket without no option o0f playing for the home country itself. An example is the recent contract which was signed by Brendan Taylor  which did not allow him to play for the Chevrons and had to see him quit the national team. Nations such as England are therefore successful because they do not care that they maintain that large poll of players to pick from. Zimbabwe Cricket needs to therefore find a compromise in which  they can still utilise the talent that would have failed to break into the ECB setup. Its only fair that if the ECB is developing talent that they also keep it to themselves but there`s just no point in them holding on to the talent whilst our game suffers.
Going forward we also need to ensure that we are in a position whereby we are able to develop talent ourselves. We cannot simply rely on other nations to develop our talent. Its our talent at the end of the day and the only way we can fully utilise is show that same level of commitment being shown to the game itself by the lads. Right now structures which had been put in place are slowly dwindling away as there seems to be not much in terms of commitment from the administrators. Last time I was at the High Performance centre i was personally impressed by the coach`s strict rules regards alcohol but come to think of it the structures themselves are not in good shape. Takashinga is another area of concern since we haven`t really had much from them in a while now. Harare Sports Club, Alexandra Sports Club, all those are structures which are no being fully utilised whether its an issue finances then like Dean said its better for them not to play at all than to embarrass the whole nation in this manner.
Young prodigies such as Brian Vitori, Keagan Meth all failed to develop fully especially Brian who made a record-breaking entrance getting 10 wickets in his first two ODI`s. But then ever since he has dwindled away and right now he cannot even have a place in the national team setup.
The structure itself is therefore no working as we are then left with these dud to embarrass the nation as if we do have decent talent. Zimbabwe Cricket need to just look at the whole setup from high school up to that point a person gets to play for the national team . There is not much of a vetting process going on and it seems the lads are just sifting through straight into the national team. We just need to ensure that we only have the cream right at the top and that can only happen if given the opportunity to rise to it. From high school we only have the franchise system with league cricket being defunct. The bottle neck system needs to be firmly put in pace and even with the national team both Zimbabwe A and the President`s XI need to be both active. Players need to familiarise themselves with these not just as teams but as stages that their career has to go through in order to play for the Chevrons.

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