adminBongani Ndlovu
ZIMBABWE has been scrapped off the Test Rankings and it seems nobody in the Board can articulate what that means.
This is what I came across on a Facebook post by Cricket Zimbabwe that has over 60,000 likes and this shocked me.
Why? Is what I asked myself, how could this be?
It seems that Zimbabwe did not play enough test cricket matches last year and this has prompted the International Cricket Council to strike off the Chevrons from the top 10.
They’re now in position 11 above the associate sides.
According to cricinfo.com Zimbabwe has 48 points, having played only four tests, but has not played the required eight Test matches over the new rating period to be included on the main table.
Australia has the highest number of tests played last year with 32 and Bangladesh is anchoring the ranking with 12.
Imagine last year the Chevrons failed to play at least eight matches in test cricket. The question is why? My answer is that no country wants to play them as I guess it’s a waste of time.
Zimbabwe is simply not competitive, in all forms of the game.
So a country’s cricket team cannot travel all the way from wherever they are to come and just pick up points without any meaningful challenge. In the last 11 years, the Chevrons have only played 14 Tests.
According to the ratings, teams will get more points if they play more competitive sides and they win them, rather than play weaker sides (like the Chevrons) and win.
A side that has full test status has been relegated to associate level where no teams would want to play it even if they see easy pickings from the game.
Easy pickings yes, because the test cricket power houses such as South Africa, Australia, England, India and Sri Lanka would have a field day setting and breaking test records at the expense of hapless Zimbabwe.
This reminds me of Sri Lanka’s May 2004 tour, who when they had reached 713 for 3, after Marvan Atapattu (249 runs) and Kumar Sangakkara (270 runs) plundered double-centuries, finally declared, I was there at Queens Sports Club. It was the most embarrassing day.
This means the full test status we have is useless and meaningless, if nations don’t want to tour Zimbabwe or host us in their respective countries.
That is besides the point, however!
The administration at Cricket Zimbabwe should wake up from their slumber!
Zimbabwe isn’t producing the quality players that can tackle test cricket. Our bowling poor; batting pathetic and fielding average, with this concoction it’s a recipe for failure when they take on the world’s best.
Too much time and money has been spent on the shorter version of the game, which also they’re not good at.
The players are fine tuned to be “masters” of T20, from school to national level, which isn’t bearing fruit in any case, judging by how they struggle to beat lowly associate nations such as Afghanistan.
The Cricket board should come up with concrete solutions to make the nation competitive in the longer version like focusing more on producing players of that sort from a junior level.
Obviously upon seeing this they will hide behind the finger that they have no money, which is a lame excuse in my opinion.
I think the Minister of Sport honourable Makhosini Hlongwane should nudge these people awake because they are snoring and snoring loud.
Even tourism minister honourable Walter Mzembi should weigh in because this slumber has a bearing on the country’s tourism.
It’s believed that the 2003 Cricket World Cup generated 1.3 billion Rand for the South African economy.
This is because the Proteas were and are still competitive. All that potential money is not being realised because some people choose not to work for the good of the nation.
Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa will also be interested to note that a competitive Zimbabwe Cricket has the potential to bring in the much needed USD.
Online Reporter