The International Cricket Council have come down on Zimbabwe Cricket like a ton of bricks after breaches to the governing body’s rules and conditions of financial aid.
The Parastatal organization that oversees all sport in Zimbabwe, the Sport and Recreation Commission suspended the entire ZC Board last month, giving the ICC clear grounds on which to suspend the full member nation.
The rules the ICC have laid out are very clear, even if their application is inconsistent.
For instance, Indian cricket is subject to government interference and they too have suspended board members in the past. The BCCI board is currently shackled to a Committee of Administrators appointed by the Supreme Court. If one wants to split hairs, this isn’t technically government interference as it is an act of the court not government. The SRC in Zimbabwe is a parastatal commission appointed to ensure the effective management of sport. People on the ground in Zimbabwe have divergent opinions on whether the SRC are achieving their goal. For their part, the ICC has taken a dim view of the SRC’s approach.
The BCCI contend they cannot arrange bilateral cricket with Pakistan due to government refusal. In Pakistan itself the PCB cannot elect its own head, the chairman is appointed by the Prime Minister. So it is clear that the ICC doesn’t apply the rules on government interference consistently.
The ICC have stated their terms for Zimbabwe’s readmission giving the SRC three months to restore the board elected at a conference in June.
The SRC may feel that handing Zimbabwe Cricket back to the very people who guided it into the state it is in is unlikely to improve matters, but they have little choice. The interim committee appointed by the SRC can do nothing but run domestic programmes with Zimbabwe cut off from the international cricket community.
Former Olympic swimmer Kirsty Coventry was appointed head of the SRC in 2018 and had embarked on a crusade to clear up sport and hold the ZC board accountable for the mismanagement of Zimbabwe cricket.
The ICC feel that the board was elected in a proper fashion and the SRC’s suspension of the 13-strong group amounts to government interference. It bears repeating though that the SRC is not part of Zimbabwe’s Zanu-PF run government but is a public commission.
It seems as though cricket in Zimbabwe is stuck between a rock and a hard place and it is the players who will suffer most. Zimbabwe have played little cricket this year as it is and with the ICC freezing all payments to ZC, they will not be paid. Solomon Mire has already retired from international cricket to pursue opportunities abroad and more are expected to follow.
The Harare Sports Club, Zimbabwe’s premier international cricket venue, also relies on funds from ZC for upkeep and with no money to pay salaries the ground has apparently been left untended.
That Zimbabwe Cricket is deeply indebted to the ICC seems to have played a very big part in this decision but their approach might actually do irreparable damage to the game in Zim.
