HARARE - Departing Zimbabwe cricket coach Alan Butcher has admitted the team lacks quality to challenge other international sides following a dismal tour of the West Indies last month, where they were whitewashed in all three formats of the game.

The Englishman returns home this evening after three action-packed years in charge of the African side, having started brightly with a tri-series final appearance against India and Sri Lanka in 2010 and triumphant return to Test cricket in 2011.

The Zimbabwean team was surrounded by controversy before the Caribbean tour, with a bitter race row over the national selection panel composition dominating newspapers’ headlines.

Rumour was rife that the off-field standoff could have influenced performance on tour, talk which has been dismissed by Butcher as “rubbish.”

“I will tell you right now that every time we perform badly, within ZC, the press and people everywhere, there is talk that there must be something (wrong) going on,” Butcher told the Daily News yesterday.

“But I tell you that in every case that it’s absolutely rubbish. In every case the players have not performed well enough or are not good enough, and that’s the bottom line.

“Never has there been any protest or dressing room unrest. The sooner people stop concentrating on that rubbish and start to address or accepting the fact that the players are not good enough, the quicker we move on. ”

Butcher however reserved special praise for the bowlers, especially spearhead Kyle Jarvis, debutant seamer Tendai Chatara and off-spinner Prosper Utseya for their commendable performances in the Caribbean.

“We didn’t get enough runs, we did fine with the ball and in the field and I thought the bowlers did alright and thought that we matched them pretty well,” he said.

Meanwhile, the national team got in camp on Wednesday in preparation for the upcoming home series against Bangladesh that gets underway with the first Test match at Harare Sports Club on April 17.