Zimbabwe

[kretchy]

A couple of years back i thought that Zimbabwe were improving and were not far behind the rest of the test playing nations excluding Bangladesh.

But now i reckon they are going backwards five captains since 99 (A.Flower, Campbell, Streak, Murphy and Carlisle) what is going on with them. Now they are getting belted by Sri Lanka who made 6/586.

[The Hitman]

They are dangerous in one-dayers, but in tests, they seem to get lost.

They have a bloody awesome batsman in Andy Flower, and some half decent bowlers. At the moment, the nations infrastructure is pear-shaped, with racism and violence tearing through the country, and their middle order seems just as bad. ;)

Love watching them play one-dayers at their best, but boy, their worst is bloody bad.

The Hitman

[dogboy23]

Depth is there problem.Not enough of them are up to international level.Some of there batsman would struggle at club level.The last time they were out here one of there opening batsman whos name escapes me looked absolutely terrible.

[Simon_Nesbit]

I think you'll find that they only have about 5 players who make a living out of playing cricket, and the rest are amateurs who have to work full-time as well as playing.

Also their equivalent of 'first-class' cricket has something like 200 players, (as against tens? of thousands in Australia)

[GoEagles]

In the one day form they are ok. In the last one dayer at the WACA (Aus vs Zimbabwe) they almost beat us! Depth is their problem in the test matches.

[BT]

The whole country's going to sh*t! The last of there problems is cricket seriously.

They only have 2 provincial teams to choose from (Mashonaland & Matableland) no pressure for places, no depth. Their future looks bleak.

[Joe Mama]

I think that getting the country back on its feet is more important than getting the Zimbabwean cricket team up to scratch (even though President Robert Mugabe played the game as a schoolboy).

But thier problems are typical of what's going on in the country as a whole.