Quote: The backdrop to Zimbabwe's cricketing calamity is a cold, dry winter of hardship. A nationwide cash crisis and repeated water cuts are beginning to bite. And Zimbabwe Cricket have money problems of their own: they are reportedly USD 19 million in debt. That is, perhaps, not exactly breaking news, but Zimbabwe's position and stature in the changing theatre of global cricket is also shifting and the stakes are getting higher. At the same time the team continues to slide down the rankings. They have not played enough Tests recently to earn a rating - they are just 10th by default - and face having to go through a qualifying tournament to make the 2019 World Cup. Failure to do so would bring financial ruin.
Recent backroom events will have added to Zimbabwe's worries - financial and otherwise. Dav Whatmore's severance package could allegedly set them back more than USD 400,000, according to an unnamed source in the local press. Discussion over Whatmore's exit, 18 months into a four-year tenure and just days before India arrived in the country, has largely been drowned out by lamentations at the dire cricket, and neither ZC nor the man himself have made any comment on the matter.
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The blame should not be directed towards the players. They are what they are. The reality is that this group are close to being Zimbabwe's best available cricketers in the current system. They are not in control of this ship, nor have they ever been. Contracts, the domestic structure, administrative staff: all are shrinking. There is increasing uncertainty over where exactly Zimbabwe fit into cricket's wider structure, wedged between the rest of the Full Members and the Associates. There is promise among Zimbabwe's rookie and Under-19 cricketers, but it was ever thus and young talent needs a healthy cricketing ecosystem in which to flourish.
Many of Zimbabwe's national-team cricketers have walked this road for more than a decade now. One wonders how much they have got left. In the final reckoning for a team that loses more than it wins, the distinction between losing despite your best efforts, and just giving up, is what counts. "Of ordinary cricketers there is little to be said when they are not doing well," wrote Neville Cardus; "On such occasions we overlook them." Unless they can find a way out of this mess, what is left to be said about Zimbabwe?
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