zimcricketnews.com

The ECB have attempted to persuade Zimbabwe Cricket to postpone their scheduled tour to England in 2009, and the return visit by England to Zimbabwe currently set for 2012, in exchange for a substantial compensation pay-off and a promise to lobby the UK Government to ensure the side are granted visas for the 2009 World Twenty20. According to the Zimbabwe Independent, ECB chairman Giles Clarke, the ICC's Ray Mali and Peter Chingoka met in Johannesburg last week to discuss the proposal - but Chingoka flatly refused the offer, insisting that England should honour their Future Tours Programme committments. Over to the ZC Chairman himself:

"I was in Johannesburg last Wednesday for the meeting and I turned down the ECB offers. The FTP commits every member to host and be hosted as scheduled. It’s our own right to have these tours. Zimbabwe’s players must be allowed to participate. We don’t need to lobby where we have rights, but the complications being created are for the ICC to resolve."

The problem here is that UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown is taking a harder line on Zimbabwe than his predecessor Tony Blair did, and there's every possibility that if the Zimbabwean elections scheduled for next year don't go off in exemplary fashion (what are the odds of that?), then the Zimbabwean side simply won't be allowed into the UK. The ECB has offered ZC compensation of £200,000 - far less than the standard US$2million fine the ICC imposes if a side fails to meet its FTP committments, but those provisions wouldn't be triggered if the UK Government forced the cancellation of either tour. The issue now becomes one of principle - take the money or insist on the right to tour and end up with nothing. I'd take the money, myself, but that's just not the way Zimbabwe does things at the moment...
Zimbabwe Independent - Zimbabwe leave England in a fix