Herald
26th November 2009
By Robson Sharuko
PETER ROEBUCK — the Australian journalist whose description of the Zimbabwe Cricket leadership as a bunch of FRAUDSTERS, ABYSMAL THUGS AND NASTY CREATURES has torched a severe storm here — has travelled a journey blighted by controversy, including a suspended one-year jail term, for abusing a group of teenage boys.
The former captain of English county side Somerset, and 1988 Wisden Cricketer of The Year, has written a series of damning articles — published in Australian and South African newspapers in recent weeks — blasting the ZC leadership as a group of thugs and corrupt individuals.
Roebuck, who was born in England but has assumed Australian citizenship, described ZC chairman Peter Chingoka as a snake and a chameleon, in articles where he called for Zimbabwe’s isolation from the global cricket family, and criticised overtures made by those willing to help the game back on its feet.
The reports also heaped a lot of praise on those who are still stuck in the trenches, prolonging their battles to topple the ZC leadership, as men of honour and integrity who have rightly refused to be lured into the trap of the vipers.
The articles have torched a storm here — after the Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, David Coltart posted them on his official website — and exposed the frosty relationship that exists between the minister and the ZC leadership.
That the minister personally posted those reports on his official website has angered the ZC leadership, which believes that it suggests, to a certain extent, that their parent minister appears to agree with the contents of this stunning attack on their reputation.
The ZC authorities have described the reports as an insult and have questioned Coltart’s intentions, to use his official website as a medium to publicise such a sensational attack on their reputation, especially against a background of a healing process currently underway in the game.
A number of high-profile people, who had rebelled against the ZC leadership at the height of the stormy boardroom battles, have been lured back into the fold to play a part in the healing process whose results have already started to be seen on the field.
Coltart’s apparent fascination, with the views of a controversial cricket correspondent, who appears to have such a low opinion of those who are running cricket here, is what has torched the storm.
For Roebuck has always courted controversy.
From his time as Somerset captain when he vetoed the extension of the contracts of West Indies legend Viv Richards and Joel Garner, his sharp criticism of Aussie skipper Ricky Ponting to his brush with the law that ended with him getting a suspended one-year jail term.
The Suspended Jail Term
Roebuck was slapped with a suspended two-year jail term in his native England in 2001 after admitting that he had assaulted three teenage South African cricketers, under his care, whom he had offered to coach.
The court was told Roebuck had met the South African 19-year-olds — Keith Whiting, Reginald Keats and Henk Lindeque – while working abroad, and invited them to live in his home in England on the promise that he would coach them.
He had warned them he would use corporal punishment if they failed to obey his “house rules.”
Roebuck met the three young cricketers, Keith Whiting, Reginald Keats and Henk Lindeque, who were all 19 at the time of the offences, while working as a commentator abroad.
On separate occasions, between April 1 and May 31 1999, Roebuck caned the three terrified teenagers when they failed to achieve the standards he set at coaching sessions.
Afterwards he would confront the teenagers and demand to see the marks, caused by the assault, on their buttocks.
The offences came to light when one of the cricketers showed the marks Roebuck had caused to the secretary of Bishop’s Lydeard Cricket Club, who passed the matter to the police.
Sentencing Roebuck, Judge Graham Hume Jones, told him that he had abused his power and influence over the teenagers, who were far away from home and from their friends and families.
The judge said: “It was totally inappropriate to administer corporal punishment to boys of this age in circumstances such as these. I am not assisted by an expert in the field, but it does seem so unusual that it must have been done to satisfy some need in you, whatever that may have been.
“You used your position to abuse these boys and to humiliate them.”
Roebuck said his life had been “hell” since the offences came to light and had not detected any unhappiness among the boys at the time.
“Obviously I misjudged the mood and that was my mistake and my responsibility and I accept that.”
Paul Mendelle, for the defence, said Roebuck was a “complex man” who set high standards for himself and expected that from others and had used corporal punishment only to encourage the teenagers.
Roebuck was sentenced to four months in jail for each count, with the sentences suspended for two years, at Taunton Crown Court.
He was also ordered to pay £820 in costs.
Paul Mendelle, defending, said Roebuck was a “complex man” who set high standards for himself and expected them of others, and who had used corporal punishment only to encourage the teenagers.
The Viv Richards Storm
In 1986, at the end of his first season as Somerset captain, Roebuck was instrumental in the county’s decision not to renew the contracts of West Indies legend Viv Richards and bowler Joel Garner.
The two West Indies superstars had played key roles in helping Somerset to success in the previous eight years.
Roebuck’s group argued that Richards and Garner were both ageing and their contribution to the county’s cause had declined dramatically.
England star all-rounder Ian Botham, who was with Somerset, led the rebellion against the decision to offload Richards and Garner and left the county to join Worcestershire.
Years of bitterness followed at Somerset, torched by the fallout by the decision to offload the two Windies stars, and when Roebuck eventually left the county, Richards was honoured with the naming rights of a set of entry gates and a stand at the county in Taunton.
The scars of that fallout are still being felt right up to this day.
The Ponting Controversy
Following the row that erupted in Australia last year, in the wake of accusations that Indian spinner Harbhajan Singh had allegedly racially abused Andrew Symonds, Roebuck wrote a column calling for Aussie captain Ricky Ponting arrogant and demanding that he be sacked.
Symonds — a black Aussie cricketer – claimed that he was racially abused during the Sydney Test and, when his captain backed him, Roebuck turned his guns on Ponting and demanded that he be sacked from his job as leader of the team.
Roebuck fired a salvo at Ponting.
“If Cricket Australia cares a fig for the tattered reputation of our national team in our national sport, it will not for a moment longer tolerate the sort of arrogant and abrasive conduct seen from the captain and his senior players over the past few days,” he wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald.
“Beyond comparison it was the ugliest performance put up by an Australian side for 20 years. The only surprising part of it is that the Indians have not packed their bags and gone home. Ponting has not provided the leadership expected from an Australian cricket captain and so must be sacked.”
This caused a furore in Australia and Ponting, who defended Symonds, hit back at both Roebuck, and the leadership of Cricket Australia, in his book — Captain’s Diary 2008 – A Season Of Tests, Turmoil and Twenty20.
“Peter Roebuck … had written a lengthy piece that demanded I be sacked. The message in page one was loud and emphatic: Ponting Must Go,” wrote Ponting.
“He was scathing in his criticism, which of course he is entitled to, but to me he was so far over the top it was ridiculous.
“We made the mistake of assuming that those closest to us would automatically back us and realise that our cause was noble. When we didn’t get that support, we were angry and felt totally let down.
“There is a part of me that says in future I should steer clear of ‘cricket politics’… but I don’t want to run away from my responsibilities. I couldn’t then, and I won’t in future. Trust me.”
The Zimbabwe Cricket leadership — who have been branded a bunch of FRAUDSTERS, ABYSMAL THUGS AND NASTY CREATURES – by Australian journalist Peter Roebuck, don’t need to lose sleep over the stunning attack on their reputation. After all they are not alone in that line of fire. Even Australian captain Ricky Ponting has also been savaged following the row that erupted after the Sydney Test against India last year. But what does Ponting think about Roebuck, which could help us understand the man described by his lawyer “as complex” and what do the others also think of him? What do the inconsistencies, which can be detected in the same journalist, tell us about the man? We will carry all that, and much more, in tomorrow’s edition of this newspaper.