Australian government bans cricket team from Zimbabwe

The Australian government took the decision to ban the team from this September’s tour, to avoid handing Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, whom they accuse of perpetrating widespread human rights abuses, a potential propaganda coup.

The move came after political pressure on Cricket Australia (CA) to voluntarily cancel the tour came to no avail. Now the ICC is facing calls to cut ties with Zimbabwe in line with Australia.

“It's certainly the view of the government that we don't want the world's greatest cricket team to be caught up in a propaganda exercise for a regime like President Mugabe’s,” Australian Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer told parliament before the ban. “It would be much better if the Australian cricket team did not go to Zimbabwe, did not allow the Zimbabwe government to exploit a visit of that kind - the greats of Australian cricket put in a difficult, if not embarrassing, situation being presented with the likes of President Mugabe.”

Pressure on Cricket Australia to cancel tour

Prior to the ban, both Howard and Downer made repeated statements against this September’s tour, in the hope of persuading Cricket Australia (CA) to cancel the fixtures

Howard went as far as to offer to pay the US$2 million fine CA would be subject to from the ICC for failing to honour their international touring commitments, reasoning that it “would not be fair to visit the cost of a foreign policy decision on a sporting body.”

Instead of easing the burden on CA however, the move effectively increased the pressure on Australia’s national cricket body. Without the shield of prohibitory fines as an excuse for not cancelling the tour, CA was forced into a position where they had to make a foreign policy decision on behalf of the government.

Despite the political and media pressure to cancel the tour, CA stated their intention that the tour should go ahead, honouring their commitments to the ICC. “The ICC policy is that it's obligatory for all ICC nations to visit each other regularly unless it's not safe or unless it is impossible for some reason beyond the control of the visiting nation,” CA spokesman Peter Young told Australia’s ABC Radio before the ban.

Seeing that CA was unlikely to drop the tour, the government cancelled the tour, citing legal regulations allowing them to withhold the passports of players as justification for their actions. In doing so, they also avoided making a politically uncomfortable US$2 million payment to Zimbabwe Cricket and its chief patron, Robert Mugabe.

Cricket boycott of Zimbabwe?

Howard claimed the decision spared Australia’s cricketers from further scrutiny.

“I don't think it's fair to leave a foreign policy decision of this magnitude on the shoulders of young sportsmen," the Sydney Morning Herald reports Howard as saying. “It's much better in the end for the Government to take the rap, and we're taking the rap.”

“We're taking responsibility for it, it's our decision, and we're making that very clear, and I hope the rest of the cricketing world understands that it would be a very good idea if the rest of the cricketing world adopted the same attitude towards Mugabe's regime.”

This is the first time a government has banned a cricket team from touring Zimbabwe. However, it is not the first time a cricket tour to Zimbabwe – the only sport where Zimbabwe comes into regular contact with Western nations – has been rocked by controversy.

An earlier Australian tour to Zimbabwe was dropped at the last minute after Zimbabwean cricket offered to cancel the series to avert possible sanctions at the ICC over political and racial bias within the team. In 2005, the New Zealand government refused to issue visas to touring Zimbabwean cricketers because of the political situation in the country, and the touring England team required assurances that players and officials would not come in contact with Mugabe.

Sekai Holland, a member of the Zimbabwean opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), welcomes the ban telling reporters at Sydney International Airport that “Zimbabweans would feel that for once, Australia has not dilly-dallied about where its alliances are. There should be no ties with Zimbabwe until Mugabe goes.”

Also backing the boycott is Kate Hoey, a former UK sports minister and now chair of an influential parliamentary committee on Zimbabwe. Hoey was scathing of the “supine complicity of ICC officials who allow themselves to be used as stooges for Mugabe’s grandstanding to the world,” reports Cricinfo.com.

Continuing her stinging attack against, she claimed the ICC “just wants to make sure it gets a few million dollars out of the tour to divvy up with Mugabe's murderers - it is bloodstained money.”

A way out of Zimbabwe for cricket

The cancellation of the trip may therefore come as a blessing in disguise for the ICC. As the medium for the payment of the fine, they could have been left open to charges of financing Mugabe at the expense of a principled decision not to tour.

As neither New Zealand nor England, the two nations along with Australia where most criticism of Zimbabwe has come from, are scheduled to play Zimbabwe until 2009, the pressure on the ICC to scrap Zimbabwe's membership may well die down.

For now though, the ICC will have to prepare itself for more political pressure over Zimbabwe.