We are trying to lure back departed players: Heath Streak

Team Zimbabwe is all set for their tour to Sri Lanka for a 5-match ODI series and a one off Test. On the eve of the first ODI, the head coach Heath Streak tried to cite the reasons for Zimbabwe’s sluggish progress in the world cricket. On one hand, there is a team like Afghanistan that has received the Test status within four years of being inducted as an associate nation.

On the other hand, Zimbabwe cricket continues to languish at the bottom of the top 10 ICC teams despite having received the Test status almost 25 years ago. Heath Streak believes that the cricket calendar in Zimbabwe is to be blamed for this. He rightly mentioned that the players keep on migrating to other countries in search of more matches and more opportunities.

To validate his point, he cited the examples of Tom Curran – who recently made his debut for England. Earlier, other international players like Gary Ballance and Colin de Grandhomme have left Zimbabwe to play for England and New Zealand respectively. “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,” quoted Heath Streak as per the quotes in ESPNcricinfo.

“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,” he added.

Trying to lure players back

Heath Streak further noted that the team is keen on luring the departed players back to their roster. In order to do so, they need to play more and more matches so that the players would be interested. And the only way to get more matches is by playing competitive cricket so that more international fixtures could be rolled out. There have s been big gaps between two series and that has hampered their plans.

“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 [to do],” said Streak.

“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,” the former pace bowler conceded.

Optimistic on Sri Lanka tour

Speaking about the current tour, Streak noted that the current preparation of the team is competent enough. He is confident that the team will do well. He believes that team can beat any side on their given day if they play to their fullest potential.

“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 Heath Streak.