Cricket: Zimbabwe tour delayed but not forgotten

Justin Vaughan. Photo / Paul Estcourt

The door remains ajar on the latest round of New Zealand-Zimbabwe cricket relations, subject to changes in the political landscape in the impoverished African nation.

The scheduled tour comprising three ODIs in July was yesterday put off until June-July next year, after a meeting between New Zealand Cricket chief executive Justin Vaughan and Zimbabwe's representative on the International Cricket Council, Ozias Bvute, at the ICC meeting in Johannesburg.

And with New Zealand's end-of-year tour to Pakistan a strong chance to be called off, it means a lean international year ahead for the national side.

Rather than scrap the tour, Vaughan said he acceded to a request from Bvute, a close crony of despised Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, to provisionally reschedule the visit.

He told Bvute the New Zealand Government's position was that it did not want the tour to proceed and would almost certainly stop the team travelling.

"He asked me whether we had any free playing time next winter," Vaughan told the Herald from Johannesburg yesterday.

Vaughan consulted the international playing calendar and found a vacant window in the middle of the year.

"He asked if we would be prepared to postpone the tour, that they believed a postponement would be in everyone's best interests. I could see no reason to deny them that request, given we have no cricket at that time," Vaughan said.

Whether the tour goes ahead at that time most likely depends on whether Zimbabwe's political situation has improved under the power-sharing arrangement with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his Movement for Democratic Change party; whether Mugabe remains in power; and the health of the country, given its ongoing cholera outbreak.

Last week, Prime Minister John Key said New Zealand should boycott Zimbabwe on moral grounds, as well as for health and safety reasons.

By contrast, New Zealand last toured Zimbabwe in 2005 when Labour Prime Minister Helen Clark refused to order the team not to make the trip. If NZC had then withdrawn of its own volition, it would have been in line for a US$2 million fine ($3.9 million) from the ICC for failing to fulfil its obligation to tour the country.

Vaughan said the ICC was "comfortable" with the postponement.