The Daily Telegraph
26th January 2003
By Scyld Berry and Neil Manthorpe in Harare
England’s cricketers will declare their deep reluctance about going to Zimbabwe for their World Cup match on Feb 13 in a statement to be issued on their behalf by Richard Bevan, the managing director of the Professional Cricketers’ Association.
The statement is expected to call for England’s qualifying match against Zimbabwe to be transferred from Harare to South Africa, and make plain that they will only agree to go to Zimbabwe because of the England and Wales Cricket Board’s contractual obligation.
The players’ moral stance has intensified in recent weeks to the point where the captain, Nasser Hussain, asked to attend a meeting between David Morgan, the ECB chairman, and Duncan Fletcher, the England coach, on Friday to discuss threatening letters sent to the team’s dressing-room by a Zimbabwe protest group before the first one-day series final in Sydney.
The letters, addressed to each player, purported to come from Zimbabwean freedom fighters. They outlined the reasons against making the trip to Zimbabwe and subtly indicated that security for the match could be breached.
The group claimed to have bypassed security at the one-day international between Zimbabwe and Pakistan in December, a match the International Cricket Council monitored as part of their security review of the country.
“Nasser Hussain advised me that the players that were ready to go a week ago are less ready now,” Morgan said. “They were receiving threats about the possibility of disturbances and riots during and in the lead-up to our match.”
Morgan, however, held out the hope that England might yet be allowed off the hook. Speaking in Melbourne yesterday while England were being beaten by Australia in the second VB final, he insisted that “a live review” of the situation in Zimbabwe would continue right up until the day of the game.
The ICC are due to decide this week whether security in Kenya is adequate for two World Cup games to be staged there. If they announce that Kenya is too dangerous, a precedent will be set, and the momentum to have Zimbabwe’s matches transferred as well can only increase.
England’s game with Zimbabwe could be rescheduled up to four or five days before it is due to be played, according to Malcolm Speed, the ICC’s chief executive.
Beyond that, the management of either side would have to make an application to the World Cup’s technical committee to have the points shared if the match cannot proceed for security reasons. If they think there is a case to answer, the matter will go before the appeals committee, made up of three judges – one each from South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya.
It is believed that Port Elizabeth and Bloemfontein have been identified as the grounds which could stage matches switched from Zimbabwe at short notice. England will be based at Port Elizabeth for their two warm-up matches on Feb 4 and 6.
However, Speed re-iterated yesterday that the matches in Zimbabwe would go ahead as the security situation had not deteriorated sufficiently for the players’ safety to be at risk.
A more alarming scenario was presented in Harare yesterday by Movement for Democratic Change MP David Coltart. He said his party had always been committed to peaceful protest and would continue to hold demonstrations during the tournament next month but added: “The situation is extremely volatile and could explode at any moment. There is no way anybody’s safety and security can be guaranteed in the current climate. It just requires the tiniest spark and it could come from anywhere at any time.”
He also suggested that the trial on a flimsy treason charge of MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, beginning on Feb 3, could act as a catalyst for unrest.
“The trial will last at least two weeks. Does the world have any idea of the emotions that will be generated in Zimbabwe?” Coltart said. “Has the world seen the so-called ‘Green Bombers’ [war veterans] indiscriminately beating people up? The police don’t just condone it, sometimes they organise it.”
Speed and his World Cup organising committee counterpart, Ali Bacher, visited the country for 24 hours on Wednesday and Thursday and outraged MDC supporters with their positive verdict on the Zimbabwean police.
“For Ali Bacher to say he was ‘heartened’ by their enthusiasm was utterly appalling, disgusting and outrageous,” Coltart said. “He was talking about a force that has selectively applied the rule of law for over two years and routinely detains innocent citizens and tortures them. Bacher and the ICC have just endorsed torture.”
By addressing the issue of player safety the ICC have been narrow minded and short sighted, Coltart said. “Cricket is nothing without spectators. The ICC, presumably, will fly the teams in and out of the country and guard them with high security, but what about the people who have to make their own way – or are they not the ICC’s responsibility?”
Coltart also refuted the claims by Bacher that police commisioner Augustine Chihuru had guaranteed opposition groups the right to demonstrate “provided the correct procedures are followed”.
“This police force has relentlessly clamped down on every form of legal protest, however peaceful. Now there is a deep, deep level of anger.
“There is anger that this regime is endorsed by the ANC in South Africa and anger at the inactivity of the international community. Add in the food shortages and lack of basic necessities and you think we can tell visitors to Zimbabwe that they will be ‘safe and secure’?”
Graeme Smith, the captain of the South Africa A team on tour in Harare, said: “We are treated so well. We have excellent food, the hospitality couldn’t be better and we have haven’t experienced a moment of insecurity or discomfort. If I didn’t know any better I’d go home and say everything looks fine.
“But on the way from the airport we drove past a bread queue with hundreds of guys having the hell beaten out of them by police with batons, because they were hungry. And I’ve spoken to the workers in the hotel. They have starving families in the country.”
Zimbabwe cricket’s chief executive, Vince Hogg, said: “No one is saying, or has ever said, there are no problems in Zimbabwe Heath Streak [Zimbabwe’s captain] has copped a lot of flak recently for saying that it is safe to play cricket in Zimbabwe, that there is no security risk. But that must be separated from people becoming emotional about the problems the country has. We believe it is safe to play cricket here, and so does the ICC.”
In a separate development yesterday the England players agreed to remain in Australia together before flying to South Africa direct, in accordance with the ECB’s wishes. The one exception is Steve Harmison, who will be allowed home to see his second child, who was born in December.