Heath Streak blames poor schedule and subsequent migration of players for Zimbabwe’s miserable run

Streak blames poor schedule & subsequent migration of players for ZIM miserable run

Ahead of Zimbabwe‘s tour of Sri Lanka, head coach Heath Streak cited the reason for the African nation’s poor form in world cricket since the past few years. Talking ahead of Zimbabwe’s first game in the tour, former Zimbabwean captain spoke about the sporadic schedule and frequent migration of players as the main reason for the side’s consistent spells as the bottom-ranked side across formats. Streak stressed on the fact that players have continued to migrate and it is difficult to retain them owing to large gaps in calendar. Full Cricket Scorecard, Sri Lanka vs Zimbabwe, 1st ODI

“It’s well-documented [that] there have been a lot of players who have left and are playing around the world who come from Zimbabwe. It’s been tough for Zimbabwe to retain some of these players and hence we are constantly rebuilding. We’ve got a lot of young guys in our team. If you look around the world, and look at Zimbabweans internationally, we’ve got the likes of Gary Ballance, the Curran boys Sam and Tom, who just debuted for England, and Kyle Jarvis playing county cricket successfully. We’ve got a lot of these guys out there whom we are trying to lure back. Part of their problem is the volume of cricket that Zimbabwe plays. That’s something that we can’t address, obviously. It’s a Catch 22 situation. We’ve got to play good competitive cricket for other countries to give us matches and that’s something we are really targeting”, Streak was quoted as saying by ESPNCricinfo.

Emphasising on his point, Streak added, “Hopefully we can get some of those players to return to Zimbabwe and complement a talented group of players that we have brought to the shores of Sri Lanka. It’s going to be a challenge because of the lack of cricket. We have these big gaps in between series and that’s probably our biggest challenge to get the guys to get used to playing at elite level.”

“You inherit the players and your job is to try and get the best out of them. I certainly think that the team we’ve got here has got the ability to win against any side. We had some good preparation coming into the series and I am looking forward to a lot of guys who can pull around. The future of Zimbabwe cricket is brighter if we keep doing the right things”, concluded the coach.

Zimbabwe are currently touring Sri Lanka where they will play five ODIs and a solitary Test.