Zimbabwe stars find life tough in Australia

[Beny]

Zimbabwe stars find life tough in Australia

Wisden Cricinfo staff

October 27, 2004







Part of the reason Sean Ervine shifted to Perth was to live with his partner Melissa Marsh © Getty Images


The Zimbabwe exiles Sean Ervine and Andy Blignaut have discovered that international reputations count for little in Australia. Both were considered the sport's future in their troubled homeland before an ugly dispute this year with the Zimbabwe Cricket Union.

Now they can't make a state team in Australia. Twelve months ago Ervine claimed the scalps of Justin Langer, Ricky Ponting, Darren Lehmann and Steve Waugh and made a half-century in a Test at the WACA. This week he is playing for the Western Australia Second XI at Perth's Fletcher Park and is in a four-way battle with the allrounders Peter Worthington, Darren Wates and Kade Harvey for one spot.

"A lot of people are expecting a lot out of me, but I have to get used to the conditions and competing against players I don't know," Ervine was reported as saying by AAP. "I have had to take a few steps back and start all over again and have gone from playing international cricket to grade cricket. At least I will value my spot."

Part of the reason Ervine shifted to Perth was to live with his partner Melissa Marsh, the daughter of the former Australia vice-captain Geoff. But Wayne Clark, the Western Australia coach, was blunt about his prospects. "There are people in front of him," said Clark. "He needs to make a statement, because he is not going to walk into the team."

On the other side of the country is Blignaut. He is also finding himself on the outer in Tasmania after figures of 0 for 79 off 12 overs in his Pura Cup debut against Western Australia. Blignaut, a hard-hitting allrounder and former model, is not yet at full fitness and the Tasmanian coach Brian McFadyen said Blignaut was a "project player". McFadyen said it was unfair to pass judgment until he had completed another month of fitness work.

Blignaut picked up 51 wickets at 32.62 and scored 638 runs at 24.53 in 15 Tests for Zimbabwe. But he is best known for his 54 off 28 balls against Australia in the 2003 World Cup. He can bowl in excess of 140kph and according to McFadyen "can hit the ball as hard as anyone I have seen".

Ervine, 21, and Blignaut, 26, were among the rebel players involved in a row over racial selection quotas with the ZCU, which resulted in a mass exodus of the team. Their former team-mate Travis Friend, 23, who played 13 Tests, is the other Zimbabwean player in exile in Australia. He is currently playing grade cricket in Sydney.

Blignaut had no regrets about the players' stand that ended in their sacking. "It was very difficult but at the end of the day we stood up for what we believed in and still believe in," he said. "We all get fired for that and then you have to look at the next best option. We had to move on."

© Wisden Cricinfo Ltd


In light of the controversy surounding county cricket in Enlgand I thought It might be interesting to get some oppinions about weather or not overseas players should be playing in national compition.

[Mike Small]

It depends Beny.

As a fan I would say I would want to have our future players play in conditions as close to the highest level as possible, and so having international players playing in your domestic system is important - it has a significant role in the standard of cricket a domestic competetion. But too much of anything is harmful, the problem we have in county cricket is not with overseas players, I'm perfectly fine with the 2 foreginers per team rule there is, the real problem though for me lies deeper. You look at some of the sides and you have foreginers playing as locals and nearly half of their sides are made up of such "converts". This is ultimately what is my concern is. County Cricket is in place to help produce players for the England test and ODI teams- if half the sides taking part in the competetion are being represented by Stuart Laws, Andy Flowers, Mathew Elliots, Mohammad Akrams etc that either don't qualify to play for England or have already pasted their primes and hence are no longer in contention then the primary aim of setting up a domestic competetion is being hampered. The EURO qualified players for instance I believe are a genuine hinderance in the way of promisng native (born & bred in England and Wales) players.

Its not the actual notion of international players playing in a domestic competetion that has created controvesy, its the number of those players that is a concern . As long as athourities can manage a balance between home and internatioanal players I'm all for exposing the first class game and players to players from the international scene. You only have to look at what sort of impact Ricky Ponting created at Somerest last season and people like Wasim Akram for Lanchashire and Mark Waugh for Essex have in the past - having international players is important (for commercial and financial reasons as well) but it should not be allowed to go over board, at any point clubs should not comprimise on the England factor. That is why I beleive the new measures by ECB to give incentive to counties that produce England players is a good move. And one probably long overdue in my opinion.

The very fact that Blignaut, Ervine and Friend have not found their footing in Australian up till now speaks something about the standard of cricket and not to forget the very high levels of competetion in Australian First Class Cricket - something that seems running up to the test and ODI side it self. If they had been in England instead they would have all have been well and truely setteled into a lucrative contract with some county by now. The rules in our system are soft, they have too many loop holes the 'converts' can exploit. We need to tighten up.