What now for Zimbabwe?

Once Zimbabwe lost Craig Ervine, Sean Williams and Sikandar Raza in a must-win encounter with less than 40 runs combined, it was always going to be an uphill task for them to win. They had contributed over 63% of Zimbabwe’s runs in the tournament ahead of their game against Scotland, masking the poor show of other batters on more than one occasion.

In the end, that played a pivotal part as Zimbabwe now have no chance of making it to the World Cup in India – missing out on the mega event in its second successive occasion.

That’s a cause for concern in the long run for Zimbabwe. Both Raza and Ervine are 37, while Williams is 36. By the time the 2027 World Cup comes along, all of them will be 40 or more and their chances of sticking along till then are wafer-thin.

Williams in the Qualifiers had a tournament that many dream of. Scoring 600 runs in seven innings no joke. None have remotely come close to matching him in the tournament. To put things into perspective, the second-best in the tournament was incidentally Raza with 325 runs.

Against Scotland, the southpaw may not have contributed with the bat but played a pivotal role in restricting the opposition with his superb spell of 3 for 41. That’s something players like Williams and Raza bring to the table – if they fail in one aspect, they have the capability of making up with the other.

In ODIs since 2020, no Zimbabwe batter other than these three have an average of even 30. The gulf between the three veterans and the rest is vast. Gary Ballance briefly stepped up for Zimbabwe to provide some much-needed relief, but his stepping away from international cricket has further added to Zimbabwe’s woes. There was of course someone as experienced as a Brendan Taylor too who gave up his Kolpak deal to help Zimbabwe succeed.

It’s no secret that Dave Houghton has turned things around for Zimbabwe. Since he took over last year, Zimbabwe have seen drastic improvement. He has not just galvanized the dressing room, but also an entire nation stood behind the Cheverons in their ups and downs.

“The man is a revolutionary. He has revolutionised all of us with little he said. But it held a lot of weight: How much he has brought accountability and honesty in the changing room, brought about camaraderie in the changing room, how he has lifted and respected the seniors. He's got a magic wand, let me say that,” Raza told Cricket.com.

Unfortunately, the wand was not magical enough to take Zimbabwe to the mega event later this year. It was UAE who stood in their way in 2018 and now, five years down the line, it is Scotland, who have dashed their hopes.

Raza has been the lynchpin behind Zimbabwe’s success in the last 2-3 years with both bat and ball. It is hard to imagine Zimbabwe’s position in world cricket now, if he had decided to give up the game following surgery in 2021, after a suspected bone marrow cancer.

However, once again the lack of depth showed in the Zimbabwe unit when they failed to overcome the Netherlands and Bangladesh in the T20 World Cup 2022, after a nail-biting win over Pakistan.

A player or a team is judged based on how well they do in crunch matches or situations. Sadly from Zimbabwe’s point of view, they have failed to come out on top more than once in the last few months.

What if Williams, who had retired from the sport in 2015 at the age of 28 – never returned to play for Zimbabwe? Amid all this, they have had someone as calm and composed as Ervine, who has taken responsibility head-on and led Zimbabwe in the Houghton era with utmost grace. So much so, he began opening in ODIs after the likes of Innocent Kaia, Tadiwanashe Marumani and Wesley Madhevere failed to produce the goods in the last year and a half.

While Zimbabwe’s focus will turn the 2024 T20 World Cup, they will hope to go into it after identifying a few players, who can serve them for the foreseeable future. Eventually, it is about giving chances to those who have the potential, even if they fail on a few occasions, believing that in the long haul, they are the ones who are going to take Zimbabwe cricket to great heights.

Do they have someone like that now? As things stand, there seems to be none in sight. Zimbabwe have been blessed to have some world-class cricketers up their ranks in the last few years. Their stocks are however quickly diminishing.