LONDON, April 27: Former Zimbabwe captain Andy Flower has said he has “mixed emotions” about the African country’s forthcoming tour of England.

Flower, now playing for English county Essex, announced his retirement from international cricket after this year’s World Cup concluded in March.

Together with team-mate Henry Olonga, Flower staged a black-armband protest, mourning the “death of democracy” in famine-affected Zimbabwe under President Robert Mugabe, during the team’s tournament opener against Namibia.

But unlike some critics of the Mugabe regime who want the tour scrapped, Flower, 35 on Monday, was less certain.

“I have mixed feelings about whether this tour should take place,” Flower wrote in the Sunday Telegraph.

“There will be demonstrations and I actually think that will be a positive thing because it will give the human rights activists a chance to highlight the problems in Zimbabwe,” added Flower, who will play domestic first-class cricket in Australia for South Australia later this year.

“But I do not think that sporting sanctions against Zimbabwe will necessarily work. They did during the apartheid years in South Africa because of the importance South Africans attach to sport.

“But the Zimbabwean leadership have their hands rather full these days, what with their own business interests and rapidly deteoriating economy — and an inceasingly hungry, and therefore restless population.”

Flower was a mainstay of the Zimbabwe side for more than a decade as a lefr’s Test haul of 4,794 runs at an avergae of 51.54 marked him out as one of the best players of his generation.

His brother Grant, a batsman and left-arm spinner, has retained his place in the Zimbabwe side and will be a member of their tour party.

But the two-Test tour was placed in jeopardy when England refused to play their World Cup match against Zimbabwe in Harare, citing safety fears.—AFP