“Zimbabwe Cricket is still suspect despite a number of welcome improvements in the coaching structure”

The Telegraph

By Simon Briggs

25 February 2011

The return of Zimbabwe to the international cricket stage has been a public relations triumph for its coalition government. “Cricket is a microcosm of Zimbabwe,” said David Coltart, the minister for education, sport, arts and culture.

If true, this would suggest that racial tolerance and responsible governance have resurfaced at national level, as well as within the cricket board.

The reality is more complicated. President Robert Mugabe still clings on to power, despite the appointment of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai as his prime minister. Indeed, it is feared that Mugabe could reclaim his majority in the next round of elections this coming summer.

At a time when undemocratic governments are crumbling around the world, Mugabe remains the dictator’s dictator. Last weekend, a group of 52 Zimbabweans who gathered to watch a video of events in northern Africa were arrested and imprisoned, though not before one of them was thrown from a window and suffered a broken leg.

Should Zimbabwe be excluded from the World Cup on the grounds that their president is a murderous thug? Probably not, given that other countries – notably Pakistan and Sri Lanka – suffer from political intrigues and human rights abuses of their own.

Still, we should be wary of this idea that a healthier cricket team implies a healthier nation. There may be other forces at work here, not all of them benign.

It is true that the set-up in Zimbabwe has improved hugely since 2006 — the year they voluntarily relinquished their Test status.

Under the management of the admirable Coltart, it is hard to see the accounts being incinerated, or plunged into a bath, as was rumoured to have happened before the notorious KPMG investigation of March 2008, which found “serious financial irregularities”.

In recent months, a number of white players have returned to coach and play for the national team, so that Grant Flower now manages the batsmen, and Heath Streak the bowlers, while Alistair Campbell is the chairman of selectors.

The domestic game has been pepped up by the introduction of five franchises as opposed to the old Mashonaland-Matabeleland duopoly, and December’s Twenty20 competition boasted a number of overseas imports such as Jason Gillespie, Brian Lara and our own Nick Compton.

And yet, despite all these improvements, the people at the top of Zimbabwe cricket have not changed. In this respect, at least, cricket really is a microcosm of Zimbabwe, for the sport is still governed by Peter Chingoka and Ozias Bvute, a pair of deeply discredited plutocrats who have been accused of embezzling International Cricket Council money.

The question we should really be asking is cui bono – who benefits – from Zimbabwe’s resurrection as a cricket power?

Yes, the players can take comfort from the return of stability to their management and coaching structure, and they can surely learn from the advice of such superstars as Lara.

But the elephant in the room is the annual payment that Zimbabwe Cricket receives from the ICC.

In the last set of accounts, it stood at around US$5million. Is it any coincidence that, by investing in the national team, Chingoka and Bvute have safeguarded that income for the foreseeable future?

This may be a cynical reading of the situation. But it would seem to be shared by Henry Olonga, the fast bowler who joined Andy Flower in a brave black-armband protest at the 2003 World Cup, and who told a recent interviewer that he still doesn’t trust Zimbabwe Cricket as far as he can spit.

Yes, a successful and integrated team may provide a distraction for those unfortunate enough to live in a country where the life expectancy has dropped to below 40. But do not expect Zimbabwean sport to influence Zimbabwean politics over-much.

Look at those who took a moral stand over Zimbabwe’s repressive regime seven years ago: Olonga, Andy Flower and the England team. It is the players themselves who suffered, either by being driven out of their native land, or through elimination at the World Cup.

Mugabe once said that “cricket civilises people and creates good gentlemen”. It is a lesson that he, still the patron of Zimbabwe Cricket, appears to have forgotten.

For no matter what is happening on the cricket pitch, or even in the council-rooms of Western democracies, he just keeps batting on regardless.