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| June 4, 2003 | Wednesday | Rabi-us-Sani 3, 1424 |
‘Zimbabwe squad was not politically vetted’
LONDON, June 3: None of the current Zimbabwean cricket squad were selected purely on their political affiliation, the chairman of the Zimbabwe Cricket Union (ZCU) claimed on Monday.
Peter Chingoka rejected the latest of the claims about the squad being chosen because they would not make trouble over the regime of President Robert Mugabe.
Chingoka, however, denied claims in the Observer newspaper on Sunday that several of the ZCU board were linked to Mugabe’s Zanu-PF government and that the players had only been selected because they promised not to make trouble.
The article follows earlier claims by former captain Alistair Campbell that the squad had been selected because they were ‘yes men’ and captain Heath Streak — whose father, a white farmer, was detained for three days by the police last year and had three quarters of his farm seized under the government Land Laws — would not dare rock the boat.
Chingoka said none of these stories were true and denied the suggestion that this selection policy had weakened the team, which went down to a crushing defeat by an innings and 92 runs inside three days in the first Test against England.
The ZCU supremo slammed those former players like Campbell who had made the claims about the selection policy.
“Recent players who have criticised the team should look at their own performances over an extended period of time as the real reason they were not selected,” said Chingoka.
He also warned those people threatening to launch mass protests against the regime at the second and final Test which starts on Thursday to stay away.
Campbell told the Times on April 29 that all the players would only have been permitted to go on the two-Test tour if they passed a political vetting process by the Zimbabwe Sports Commission as he had experienced when he was a member of the squad.—AFP
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