SYDNEY, March 27: Australian Cricket Board (ACB), on the advice of Australian Foreign Affairs Department, has cancelled its cricketers’ planned tour of Zimbabwe next month.
It is believed that board wanted to go ahead with the tour but called off due to extreme government pressure and public criticism of its previous decision to honor its commitment to tour Zimbabwe.
Australian government has officially advised its citizens that they should postpone all non-essential travel to Zimbabwe because of the situation after this month’s presidential elections.
The Australian Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, hailed the decision of ACB and said Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe should take the blame for cancellation of the cricket tour.
“Our cricket team cannot go to Zimbabwe because President Mugabe has turned Zimbabwe into a country which is too dangerous for our team to visit,” said Mr. Downer.
ACB chairman, Bob Merriman announced the decision, taken Tuesday night in the Board meeting and communicated to its counterpart in Zimbabwe.
“The Australian Cricket Board has overnight advised the Zimbabwe Cricket Union that the Australian cricket team is unable to partake of the tour and travel to Zimbabwe at this time,” said ACB chairman Merriman.
Zimbabwe’s High Commissioner in Australia, Florence Chitauro, who was making every effort to persuade ACB for not canceling the tour, said that politics and sport should not mix.
“There’s never been any disruption whatsoever. As for as games are concerned the Zimbabwean public differentiates between political issues and sport issues,” said High Commissioner Ms Chitauro.
The Australian cricket team was due to play two Tests and thre one-dayers and tour was to start from April 11.
The ACB has also discounted the possibility of using a third country South Africa or Kenya to play against Zimbabwe. According to Australian cricket officials, the tour is most likely to take place in the winter of 2004.
AGENCIES ADD: The Zimbabwe Cricket Union (ZCU) said it would try to persuade Australia to reconsider after cancelling its tour of the country over safety concerns Wednesday.
ZCU president Peter Chingoka told a news conference that his board hoped to convince the Australian Cricket Board (ACB) that there were no grounds for concern.
Chingoka said the cancellation of next month’s tour, comprising a Test and one-day series, would be expensive for Zimbabwe but there was no question of switching matches to neighbouring South Africa.
“We received the news with a very heavy heart, but we are also working very hard to ensure that the tour will take place as originally scheduled,” he said. “Our position is that there is nothing to fear, that there should be no concerns at all about safety.”
Chingoka, though, said the ZCU was working with the Zimbabwean government’s sports ministry to try to persuade the Australian government to withdraw that travel advice.
The ZCU president said if Australia insisted on cancelling its tour Zimbabwe would lose “quite a substantial amount” in television rights fees and earnings for its cricket development programmes.
Zimbabwe was looking at other match options but was hopeful that Pakistan would fulfil its tour of the country later in the year, Chingoka said.
“We believe that it is totally safe now...and we have no fears for the future either,” he said.
Meanwhile, South African cricket authorities have not been asked to host Australian tour of Zimbabwe, a UCB spokeswoman confirmed Wednesday.—Reuters/AFP