'We'll be a tougher prospect in the next World Cup'
Zimbabwe's coach is happy enough with his side's progress to already be considering an extension to his contract. He talks about instilling belief in a "talented but easy to beat" team and watching them grow in confidence
I thought it was going to be an interesting challenge. David Houghton had encouraged me and had pushed my name quite hard, and I felt that if he had faith in me and my ability to do the job, then I'd give it a go.
I went to watch three of the ODIs they played in the West Indies in April 2010, and what I saw was a group of players who had little confidence, which was understandable given their success rate at the time. They were a side that needed to be given [responsibility] and then to be able to take responsibility for their actions. They looked like they had spent a lot of time being told what to do, and they weren't allowed to have an opinion.
Exactly. We beat Australia and Pakistan in the warm-ups, and even though it was just practice matches, they didn't want to lose to us. But then we played abysmally in the two games that mattered. Against Sri Lanka we just let them get too big a score, and we really played poorly against New Zealand. That tournament confirmed what I thought when I took the job: that it would take me about a year to work out who the best group of players were, not only technically but also from a mindset perspective.
"During our first get-together, I thought it was very interesting that some players asked a few senior administrators if they were allowed to say certain things. It took a while to get them to understand that they could do that. It was important to let them know that this was their team and not the coaching staff's team"
The adjustment has been fine. It can get a bit frustrating with the power- and water cuts, but I realised that a lot of the stuff you read in the English papers is not what you find on the ground. I am halfway through a three-year contract at the moment and if people here think I am doing a good job, I would consider staying longer. My family have not come with me, though, so that is quite difficult. My daughters are still at school, so they are still in England with my wife.
No, it wasn't. I didn't think we performed much below what was expected of us. We didn't perform above ourselves, which I hoped we would do, but we didn't do all that badly. We bowled and fielded well in the tournament, but we didn't get enough runs. If you look at the players' averages, five or six of them exceeded their ODI averages in the tournament, and the rest didn't. So I would say we performed to our average. We hoped we would meet one of the top nations on a bad day for them and a good day for us, but it didn't happen. I would still say containing Australia to 262 was a good effort. The truth was that for us to have had a realistic chance of causing an upset, this World Cup came a year too soon. In the next World Cup, we will have a better chance because we would have prepared better, mentally and physically. We will be a tougher prospect.
Yes, I think we have the best man in the job now. When I first met Prosper, I asked him if he enjoyed the captaincy, and he said, "Sometimes", so I knew that he didn't really enjoy it. His general demeanour also gave that away. He had done a good job but he was finding it tough. The obvious choice to take over at the time was Elton, but Elton is a mercurial player - some days he can be brilliant but other times not.
Actually I'd love a crack at the West Indies now! Seriously, though, I genuinely thought we would have a chance against Bangladesh, and as the game went on I became more and more confident. I was reasonably confident against Pakistan as well, and had we not dropped so many catches, who knows what might have happened.
They have worked harder and been driven harder. We had a winter training camp and they were coming in early, at around 7am, and netting for an hour or two, and some still do that on match days. They are hitting a lot more balls. They had to gain some confidence in their own ability and iron out the technical flaws.
They are only playing one Test at a time so the workload won't be too high. But we still have to look after them and make sure they don't over-bowl. We will definitely rotate them, and we are lucky that we can do that now, so we don't have to flog one guy until he is finished.
I didn't see a lot of franchise cricket the seasons before last, but people say that last season was better than those, so things must be improving. I did a few miles last season, going to some games in different areas, and the ones I saw were all competitive. There were no walkover games. We were able to have a camp with 30 players who were in line for national honours - there were some young fast bowlers who we wanted to fast-track, and they did really well. I'd say it's doing well. What's important is that we continue the process of getting the squad together in camps to prepare. We only really started that before the World Cup, when we had nine days in Dubai, but before that this team never had enough preparation time.
After the Bangladesh series we had a few days at Heath Streak's farm just outside Bulawayo, and we started by watching Fire in Babylon. The guys were just spellbound. There were so many levels on which they could relate to it - the racial aspect, the political aspect, and the quick bowling thing. They really enjoyed it.
"Like any administration that has to work under severe financial strain, there are problems. Having said that, I have always been paid on time and we are not the only ones with those problems. New Zealand had to defer payments recently and West Indies are always in some sort of turmoil"
What I will say upfront is that we don't get any interference from anyone regarding quotas. We pick the team on merit. Every black person I have spoken to about the game has agreed that that is the way the team should be handled and that everyone who is in there must be good enough.
I don't get any sense that there is corruption. Like any administration that has to work under severe financial strain, there are problems. Having said that, I have always been paid on time and we are not the only ones with those problems. New Zealand had to defer payments recently, and West Indies are always in some sort of turmoil.
We have two series against New Zealand, and I would like us to be competitive in both. In order for our one-day cricket to go forward we have to unearth some more allrounders to lengthen our batting line-up. Graeme Creamer's injury hasn't helped in that regard. We have to identify and develop some allrounders without severely weakening our bowling attack. I would also want us to be much more competitive in the T20 World Cup next year.
Firdose Moonda is ESPNcricinfo's South Africa correspondent