England cancel Zimbabwe tour

Bilateral agreements suspended

England cancel Zimbabwe tour

Cricinfo staff

June 25, 2008

The ECB has cancelled next summer's tour by Zimbabwe and suspended all bilateral arrangements with the Zimbabwe board.


The news came minutes after Gordon Brown, the prime minister, told the House of Commons that wanted the tour scrapped. "We want to ensure that Zimbabwe does not tour England next year and we will call for other countries to join us in banning Zimbabwe from the Twenty20 international tournament," he said.

In a short statement, Colin Gibson, the ECB's head of corporate communications, said: "The ECB deplores the position in Zimbabwe and, like Cricket South Africa, finds this untenable. Therefore all bilateral arrangements are suspended with Zimbabwe Cricket with immediate effect.

"The government has written to the ECB today and has made a clear instruction that Zimbabwe's bilateral tour scheduled under the ICC Future Tours Programme for 2009 should be cancelled.

"The ECB, which has been in constructive and extensive dialogue with the department for culture, media and sport for some time, welcome the government's decision and share the government's concerns about the deteriorating situation and lack of human rights in Zimbabwe."

The ECB is now looking at identifying a replacement for the tour, which is scheduled to take place before the ICC World Twenty20 next June,

© Cricinfo

About bloody time.

Fair enough.

What really matters however is the removal of Mugabe at least.

That won't happen.

ECB have been tied by the fact our government refused to ban them.

Up until now, if they refused to tour they have had a huge fine...

Wonder who will replace Zim.

embee?

Poor old Ian Bell will be gutted. He can't boost his dipping average!

On a serious note. Too damn right about bloody time. Our Government have been an embarrassment on this topic IMO.

England cancel Zimbabwe tour

Good.

Excellent insight from Andy Flower in today's DT Sport section.

"Peter Chingoka is part of Mugabe's despicable clan and the fact that he's allowed to prance around with ICC colours on and sit on ICC commottees I think is embarrassing for them. He's just not a good-enough person to be making decisiona about anything, especially not ICC Finances."

Kinda like appointing Ronnie Biggs as Chairman of the Bank of England.

Fringe Zimbabwean international cricketers get £6.00 a month as a wage. None of them can make ends meet, so they have to hussle. F*cking shambles.

It just needs everyone else to do the same now. Hopefully they will.

PeterCS wrote:Fair enough.

What really matters however is the removal of Mugabe at least.

That won't happen.

I dunno. I think the world is finally waking up to the seriousness of the situation and is really pushing for an end to the Mugabe regime. Even South Africa would appear to have had enough, as even though their incredibly weak President Thabo Mbeki still hasn't criticised Mugabe, the equally influential Jacob Zuma has. Zuma is a c*nt, but he at least wants Mugabe ousted, and he'll be the president of South Africa very soon, so he'll be able to have a huge influence in making it happen.

So we have a bit of pre-Ashes gap in the schedule - what can be arranged?

THICKEDGE wrote:So we have a bit of pre-Ashes gap in the schedule - what can be arranged?

The England players will be hoping nothing will be arranged, so that they can play a full season of the IPL.

So we have a bit of pre-Ashes gap in the schedule - what can be arranged?

Sod the IPL ...
Bring India over for a couple of dozen T20 games.
This would serve to :
top up the ECB $$$$$ coffers;
keep the Indian fans here happy ... and
get Team England into a hit or s*it mindset before taking on the Aussies.

A win/win/win situation all round I'd say!
IPL?
What's that?

Not going to happen, the ECB will miss out on revenue.

Do we know who is free to tour during that time frame?

How about a few England v England A T20 games? Would probably be interesting and bring in the crowds for about a week.....