Southern Times
By Southern Times Writer
3 September 2010
WINDHOEK – Cricket Scotland has refused to travel to Zimbabwe for an International Cricket Council (ICC) International Cup tie while Ireland has agreed to play in Zimbabwe.
Scotland was due in Zimbabwe early October but they revealed this week that their players would not travel as a result of government advice about the volatile political climate in Zimbabwe.
‘It is hugely unfortunate that Cricket Scotland has been put in an impossible no-win situation in regard to the potential tour to Zimbabwe,’ said Cricket Scotland chief executive Roddy Smith.
He said following advice from security and government officials, Cricket Scotland had agreed to move the match to Zimbabwe after it was originally scheduled for a neutral African country.
But Scottish officials have now informed the ICC of their decision to pull out of the trip.
‘Our board has taken cognisance of all the advice and recommendations from Government and the ICC, and can only take what we believe is correct course of action.
Both the UK and Scottish Governments were clear in their advice to us. Although accepting that this decision will not be welcomed by some key partners, we felt that as a responsible governing body we could not, and would not, contravene the direct and unequivocal advice from Government,’ said Smith.
The organisation published advice from the UK Government which stated that there ‘has not yet been sufficient progress in Zimbabwe on the fundamental issues of political reform and of re-establishing the rule of law to justify sports tours by British teams and the positive signal that would send’.
Scotland’s turn-around decision will not however affect Cricket Ireland who travels to Zimbabwe later this month for a series of games.
The four-day Intercontinental Cup game and three One-Day internationals were originally scheduled to be played in South Africa, but will now take place in Harare. Ireland will arrive on September 18.
The ICC is said to have contacted Cricket Ireland (CI)in May this year to inform them Zimbabwe believed it was no longer justifiable to play home matches anywhere other than Zimbabwe and asked if Ireland would consider coming to Harare.
Said CI CEO Warren Deutrom, ‘In 2008, the advice was that we should not travel from a safety and security perspective. From a political perspective, playing cricket in Zimbabwe was not something that CI would have even contemplated at that stage.
However, when we received the message from the ICC, and there was certainly no diktat from them, it was simply a reasonable question about what is the situation with your governments and would you be able to go back and check. We received information from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Department of Foreign Affairs in June that they had no objection to us going.’
However, since June, the FCO in London has changed its stance, leading to this week’s u-turn by Scotland.
Deutrom was not surprised by their decision, but the DFA still have no objections, the Ireland will go ahead.
‘CI had made entirely its own decision on this. Of course we had to take the ICC’s own views or what the international cricketing fraternity is doing, with India and Sri Lanka’s recent tours there.
Clearly, that movement towards normalisation, certainly of cricketing structures in Zimbabwe, and of course the movements towards normalisation of political structures, meant it was something that we were duty bound to investigate ourselves,’ Deutrom said.
Ireland players, management and officials have met with Zimbabwe sports minister David Coltart in Belfast earlier last month.
Meanwhile, South Africa will continue with their series against crisis-torn Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates from October to November, Cricket South Africa Chief Executive Officer Gerald Majola has said.
Following match-fixing scandal that has rocked Pakistan’s tour of England, Cricket SA said it had received numerous queries about the status of the tour.
‘The tour of Pakistan is part of the ICC Future Tours’ program, which we have to honour, unless instructed otherwise by the ICC. As such, the tour will go ahead as planned,’ Majola said in a statement.
‘We will not comment on the scandal itself, as we don’t want to compromise any processes currently in place to deal with this matter.’