One way of looking at it is to remember that it would hardly be a World Cup if it wasn’t dogged by political and financial wrangles.
The 1979 tournament took place in the aftermath of Kerry Packer’s war with the cricket establishment, and although peace officially broke out in the weeks leading up to the World Cup, the Australian board hadn’t quite forgiven those who signed up with Packer. As a result Australia sent a team comprised of those who had filled in while the stars were playing World Series Cricket. This meant that Australia had no Ian or Greg Chappell, no Dennis Lillee, no Jeff Thomson and no Rodney Marsh. It also meant that Australia, now captained by Kim Hughes, managed just one victory — against Canada — and failed to qualify for the semi-finals.
In 1983 and 1987 South Africa loomed large in the background after Ali Bacher had organised, successively, rebel tours by English, Sri Lankan, West Indian and Australian teams. There is no little irony in the fact that Bacher, as executive director of this World Cup, is now at the heart of cricket’s establishment. Talk about seeing life from both sides of the fence.
In 1996 Australia and the West Indies forfeited their matches against Sri Lanka in Colombo on security grounds. The format of the tournament, however, virtually guaranteed that both teams would advance through a preliminary round designed to whittle only four of 12 teams from the competition. As the United Arab Emirates, Holland, Kenya and Zimbabwe were all in the mix, it never seemed at all likely that either Australia or the West Indies would suffer from giving up the points.
The introduction of a Super Six round, however, makes the option of forfeiture a far more difficult choice for England. They are in the tougher of the two pools and in the best of circumstances would have their work cut out to qualify for the Super Sixes along with two of Australia, India and Pakistan.
In their planning for the World Cup, England would have viewed their opening match against Zimbabwe as a must-win game. If England beat Zimbabwe and snatch a result against any of Australia, India or Pakistan, they will go through. But if they don’t play the Zimbabwe game, they will have to win at least two of these matches, and given the current state of the England team, that’s an enormously tall order.
You have to feel sympathy for the England cricketers. They’ve been battered around in Australia for the past few months (and anyone who doesn’t understand how demoralising, on every level, this can be need only ask the South Africans who were there last year). They have legitimate fears for their own safety and what might happen in the streets around the Harare Sports Club if they play the Zimbabwe match. And they’ve been put in a pickle by their own government, which has failed dismally to come up with any coherent and constructive solution to the Zimbabwean crisis.
It’s most unlikely that the International Cricket Council (ICC) will even consider moving all six games in Zimbabwe to South Africa (India and Pakistan simply won’t consider that option). The ICC is also equally reluctant to shift only selected games and so the choice seems to be between England playing or not playing. And, sadly, it seems that this decision has trickled down to the players themselves. They’re damned if they do and they’re damned if they don’t.
One of the most intriguiging aspects of the affair has been the position of Australia. A couple of months ago, the Australian government was standing foursquare alongside the British government, calling for Australia’s match against Zimbabwe in Bulawayo to be moved. In recent weeks, however, Australia have gone dead quiet. The reason for this is fairly obvious. England are due to play in Zimbabwe on February 13, Australia’s game is scheduled 11 days later. Australia are waiting to see what happens.
If England persuade the ICC to shift their match to South Africa, Australia will be next in the queue, hands up and shouting ”Us too! Us too!” If England do play and there is trouble, then Australia will have a powerful, probably unanswerable, argument for having their game relocated. If England forfeit the game, then Australia are likely to wait until after their opening match against Pakistan and, possibly, even until after they’ve played India on February 15 before committing themselves either way.
One option is to fly England into Harare on the eve of the game and get them out of Zimbabwe as soon as is practically possible after the match. From a logistical point of view this would be possible, although whether England would want to play in such conditions is another matter.
It’s a depressing, distressing state of affairs and those who castigate the ICC for not taking a stand on Zimbabwe simply don’t understand how fragile is the unity of the ICC and how desperate many are to avoid cricket splitting along racial lines. By and large the ICC is comprised of and run by well-intentioned people who want only to advance the game, but it is also true that there are others who have different agendas to pursue. The row over the Indian players’ sponsorship contracts has also shown, though, that the ICC is struggling to come to terms with the full implications of its deal with Rupert Murdoch’s Global Cricket Corporation.
As cricket and the World Cup have evolved over the past 20 years, it has become clear that the financial muscle of the Asian sub-continent has gown increasingly strong. Although not exactly imminent, the possibility of a split in world cricket always lurks in the shadows and if such a split were ever to take place, England, Australia and New Zealand would almost certainly find themselves isolated.
This World Cup will go ahead, with or without games in Zimbabwe (or Kenya, for that matter), but the wounds of the Zimbabwe crisis have already been opened, both inside and outside that wretched country. If suspension from the Commonwealth has failed to make Robert Mugabe see the error of his ways, if both silent and noisy diplomacy have had no discernible effect on the lives of ordinary Zimbabweans, then will the staging or otherwise of a couple of cricket matches in Harare and Bula-wayo make the slightest difference to an unfolding tragedy?