WELLINGTON, July 6: The New Zealand government has written to international cricket’s governing body asking it to exclude Zimbabwe from future tours because of concerns about human rights abuses under President Robert Mugabe.

New Zealand’s government is leading a push to have Zimbabwe banned from international cricket after saying it would not welcome a team from the troubled African nation.

Foreign minister Phil Goff, in a letter to the International Cricket Council (ICC), also urged that the New Zealand team be allowed to cancel its scheduled trip to Zimbabwe without facing a hefty fine.

“We believe that the International Cricket Council cannot ignore these gross abuses as if they were not happening when scheduling the Futures Tours Programme,” Goff said in the letter, dated Tuesday.

“We therefore request the ICC, as a matter of urgency, to consider revising the Futures Tours Programme to exclude tours to Zimbabwe and by Zimbabwe while this situation continues in that country,” he said.

New Zealand has already announced it would refuse to issue visas to the Zimbabwe team in a reciprocal tour scheduled for the end of this year.

The British and Australian governments have both announced they would support plans to exclude Zimbabwe from international sport.

However, New Zealand’s cricket association has said they would proceed with the tour to avoid paying the ICC a minimum fine of $2 million for any boycott.—Reuters