Tour boss has the credentials to put some backbone into the weakest of teams – he’s a former secret police chief
Neal Collins in London
It’s probably safe to say that Zimbabwe has recently slipped rather low in the average Englishman’s top 10 holiday destinations. Ticket sales for the first Test against the Southern Africans next Thursday at Lord’s have been disappointing too.
The International Cricket Council doesn’t expect squatters at cricket’s headquarters but it does fear empty seats at the opening Test of the longest competitive summer in the history of the game. So they were probably quite chuffed when we revealed Zimbabwe’s cricket manager had once been head of internal security for President Robert Mugabe’s secret police. Apparently Dan Stannard, now 62, even saved the old despot’s life shortly after the 1980 elections and won a medal for it.
This kind of news is a godsend for the hype merchants, who have struggled to sell cricket since Ian Botham turned to golf and began sprouting grey hair. Even Hansie Cronje taking on Mohammed Azharrudin in a cash-counting contest would hardly stir up the soccer-mad British newspapers.
To be frank, Zimbabwe started their tour looking anything but international class. And last weekend there were rumours that their captain, Andy Flower, was ready to take his lads home before the two money- spinning Tests and 10 one-dayers have even started.
You can hardly blame them. They’ve had to put up with Britain’s wettest spring on record while back home their country is falling apart.
So along comes this Dan Stannard geezer. I had a chat with him last week in the appropriately named Battle Road hotel in Hastings, shortly after their defeat by Kent. Some defeat it was: they were skittled by an innings and 163 runs in less than three days.
Stannard and I had a bit of a laugh and joke about crusty old Rhodesians and modern young Zimbabweans we have known.
And we quickly came to the hopelessly optimistic conclusion that his troubled nation, struck down by internal strife 20 years after the end of their civil war, would soon heal itself. I bloody hope we’re right. Stannard should know.
He’s old and wise, gnarled and wrinkled, in the sunny African way. And yes, it’s true that he was once head of internal security for Zimbabwe’s feared (sorry, that’s my British tabloidism cutting in) Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO). He got there for saving his leader’s life. He swerved off a road in Masvingo in 1980 and drove Mugabe to safety while the tarmac was blown to smithereens behind him. In 1987, Stannard won the Gold Cross, Zimbabwe’s highest honour. Pretty fly for a white guy.
He’s a bit worried about all these “Mugabe’s mate” headlines. Actually my paper, the Sunday Mirror, went for “Mugabe’s enforcer”. Not nice. Luckily, I only have to write sport, not what passes for news in England. “I’d rather steer clear of all that,” says Stannard. “It’s just stirring up trouble for me back home.”
In Zimbabwe, Stannard is a vital link between white farmers and worried politicians. His son is a farmer – and a cricketer. He isn’t embarrassed about his past, just understandably eager to keep sensationalism at arm’s length: “I was a police officer in Zimbabwe until I retired in 1996.
“We were kept on after interdependence and the elections in March 1980. I was with our Central Intelligence Organisation and I was head of internal security, but I wasn’t director general. I enjoyed my time with the CIO, it was not a corrupt organisation. My appointment as tour manager here is not sinister – it has nothing to do with President Mugabe. I just love cricket.”
So what do we make of this guy? He’s a good cop who worked hard for the controversial Ian Smith regime … and equally hard for his now equally controversial successor after those first one-man, one-vote elections. Probably just the right kind of guy to have around on cricket tours, what with all these allegations and insinuations flying around post-Hansiegate.
His surprising background will certainly bolster interest in what appears to be a meaningless two-Test series. Last Friday, Flower admitted: “We all need a day off. Not just in the cricketing sense. There are matters that are on people’s minds. I’d rather not say what they are.” And Flower compounded his bloomer when, asked if the tour was in doubt, he responded grimly: “I hope not.”
Stannard laughs. “Look, I’m a member of the Zimbabwe Cricket Union and I can promise you this tour was never in question, whatever you may have read. I admit we were pathetic against Kent and things have to improve. I don’t know why Andy said what he did but I can say we’re all feeling a lot better now we’ve left Canterbury.
“The lads are in the nets with Tommo [the legendary Aussie pace ace Jeff Thomson, their bowling coach on tour] and if anyone can motivate us, it’s him. You know how these Aussies like to beat England. After that we’re all going for a swim. No, not in the sea! In the local leisure centre.
“By the end of this tour we will have been away from home for five months, and everyone knows how worried the farmers in our side are about what’s going on back in Zimbabwe with the squatters.
“But we are here to play cricket. We can bounce back from what happened in Kent. We have to. Back home, there are only two sports sides currently capable of raising morale. Our Davis Cup tennis team and our cricket team. We have to do well here to cheer people up in Zimbabwe. I still think we can surprise England in the two Tests.”
That said, Zimbabwe went out and gave Sussex a good pasting at Hastings last Sunday, and followed that up with a seven- wicket win against Essex at Chelmsford, where they beat South Africa in the World Cup last year.
With the first Test starting on Thursday, the chances of a Zimbabwe win look distant. Still, against England, anything is possible, especially when the opposition is led by a gong- winning, president- preserving secret policeman from the (feared) CIO.