Cricket: England campaign descends into farce

11.45am

JOHANNESBURG - England's World Cup cricket campaign was reduced to farce and utter confusion today as tournament organisers demanded a once-and-for-all decision on whether they would play their match in strife-torn Zimbabwe.

England missed a deadline set by International Cricket Council (ICC) chief Malcolm Gray to make up their minds over Thursday's match in Harare, despite four days of talks between players, security experts and officials.

The confusion followed an ICC document released to reporters in Cape Town which said England had given "formal notice" that they would not play the game.

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) denied this before the game's world governing body released a statement saying they had received a new letter from the ECB, which still failed to say whether the team would play or not.

The World Cup, the sport's showpiece event, began on Sunday with main hosts South Africa losing to West Indies but the tournament has been dominated by talk of match boycotts.

England's players have voiced concerns for weeks over both the security situation, and social and political developments in Zimbabwe.

The affair appeared to have been brought to an end last week when the organisers rejected an England appeal to switch the Zimbabwe game to South Africa, arguing that Harare was a safe venue.

That decision, made by the World Cup technical committee and ratified on appeal by an ICC-appointed judge, was supposedly binding.

England, however, have continued to argue, both with the tournament organisers and among themselves. The squad broke that routine today by practising for the first time in four days.

Nasser Hussain's squad, reportedly divided among themselves over whether to play, are also angry with their own board for not telling them early enough about a letter containing death threats to both players and their families should they play in Zimbabwe.

The ECB, meanwhile, has focused largely on financial issues and the fear that the board could be sued for millions of dollars in compensation from sponsors if the Harare game does not go ahead. The ICC resorted to both stick and carrot today, without success.

First Gray demanded a decision by 2pm, only for the deadline to pass.

South Africa's second most senior police officer, National Deputy Commissioner of Police Andre Pruis, then re-iterated at an ICC-organised news conference that the letter containing death threats had been dismissed as a hoax by the country's police and intelligence services.

"It has been sent by a person with the purpose of disrupting the World Cup," he said.

"This person or persons have no capacity to carry out any threat and should be treated as propaganda and not as a direct threat."

The stick came from the South Africa United Cricket Board's Percy Sonn, who warned that his team as well as Zimbabwe could retaliate with tit-for-tat boycotts by not visiting England later this year as planned if the Harare game does not go ahead.

He told the same news conference: "We are a few days' away from a game in which we have committed finances and effort to stage -- we still don't have an answer.

"It may become serious. Relationships are built on trust. If you start believing that trust is not there then you re-examine the relationship."

Asked if the world game would be undermined by counter-boycotts, Sonn added: "It (the world game) may well fall apart."

Zimbabwe's leading batsman Andy Flower and fast bowler Henry Olonga, meanwhile, confused the issue still further with an unprecedented attack on Zimbabwe's leaders minutes before their opening Group A match against Namibia in Harare.

In a hard-hitting statement, the pair said they would wear black armbands for the rest of the tournament in protest.

"In doing so we are mourning the death of democracy in our beloved Zimbabwe," the pair said in a statement.

"We are making a silent plea to those responsible to stop the abuse of human rights in Zimbabwe. We pray that our small action may help to restore sanity and dignity to our nation."

England and Australia have come under huge pressure from their governments to boycott fixtures in strife-torn Zimbabwe in protest at the policies of President Robert Mugabe, who they say rigged his 2002 re-election and has triggered mass hunger.

Australia are still committed to playing in Bulawayo on February 24 but are monitoring the situation.

New Zealand have refused to play in Kenya later in the tournament, also because of security concerns.

On the field, Zimbabwe won a rain-curtailed match against Namibia by 86 runs under the Duckworth/Lewis scoring method, while 1996 world champions Sri Lanka, inspired by a century from their captain Sanath Jayasuriya, beat New Zealand by 47 runs in Group B.

- REUTERS

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