States run by despots are invariably highly efficient when it comes to presenting a picture of normality to visitors. This was witnessed by visitors to the former Soviet Union, a country apparently full of happy peasants hurling themselves with zeal at the arts of mathematics and tractor-assembling.
Normality for Zimbabwean cricket means crowds of less than 30 (including the two ridgebacks panting under deckchairs), and pitches flat enough to embarrass a Mumbai groundsman.
With Andy Flower and Henry Olonga gone, Test cricket in Zimbabwe has all the joie de vivre of crawling naked across the Sahara with a mouth full of fish bones; but every so often the mood is lifted by the gaggles of schoolchildren, bussed in and, at least for an afternoon, allowed to stop learning that Comrade Mugabe has discovered that the sun in fact orbits Harare.
All this will reassure the visiting West Indians that all is well, that the intricate problems of playing sport in the armpit of the world have gone away. Or at least until skipper Brian Lara wants to buy his lads a round of drinks at the local, and has to fork over Z$17 000 worth of government bonds or chits or whatever they’re
using now to prop up the cardboard cut-out of the Zimbabwean economy.
Of course Lara and his team would be forgiven for forgetting about the state of the country beyond the slumbering ovals of Harare and Bulawayo. It’s not surprising in a world whose collective memory is shrinking exponentially that protest is becoming as transient as everything else: the Japanese are butchering dolphins, the Norwegians blowing up whales, the catwalks of Milan are lousy with fur, and yet all the ‘Save the Whales†and ‘Fur Kills†stickers on car windows are yellowing and cracked, left-overs from the 1980s. Why should anyone care about Zimbabwe?
Perhaps the amazing silence over the ethics of touring Mugabe’s country is a result of that question not having a comfortable answer. Cricket is played beautifully in some very nasty countries. Pakistan regularly features in the top echelon of human rights abusers, with India and Sri Lanka not far off the pace. If sports boycotts were enforced according to the alacrity with which states torture, execute, steal and rape, the soccer World Cup would be a two-team affair — Sweden and the Vatican politely passing each other the ball.
But not boycotting a country is by no means the same as giving it a clean bill of health, which makes the media’s silence on the current tour by the West Indies inexplicable.
Have all the gong-bangers of the The Guardian and The Telegraph changed their minds? Do different rules apply to England and the West Indies?
Certainly back in the West Indies nobody is letting it spoil their day. The Trinidad Guardian — whose slogan is ‘The Guardian of Democracy†— has remained mum, as has the Jamaica Gleaner, the Herald and all the other Caribbean dailies, newspapers that can usually be relied on for extraordinary bursts of vitriol aimed at social evils ranging from lumpy soccer fields in Barbados to international terrorism.
Wisden Cricinfo, the online version of what was once cricket’s official voice, teetered on the edge of mature comment (‘Zimbabwe, already seriously weakened by retirements and political infightingâ€) before succumbing to the usual overblown guff (‘received a further blow with the news that Grant Flower — will miss both Tests —â€).
All that political infighting, it seems, is between cricket administrators throwing cucumber sandwiches at each other, not Zanu-PF and Movement for Democratic Change goons having a go with half-bricks and sjamboks. The ‘further blow†to Zimbabwe translates into them now not being able to rely on a constipated contribution of 34, made in seven hours, from Andy’s less famous brother. Horrors, whatever will they do?
In all the copy about the ‘seriously weakened†home team, no one has mentioned Andy Flower or Olonga, virtual exiles for their stand against Mugabe and, in Flower’s case, the reason for the Zimbabwean team’s miserable fortunes of late.
One can only assume that, having taken a political stand and abandoned the safe shallow waters of sport, the two have become no-go areas for sports journalists. Flower was recently asked about watching his team getting murdered by Matthew Hayden. Not a word about where he is or why he’s there.
Only Telford Vice, a South African, gave a paragraph to the reason for the duo’s ‘retirementâ€, and that was a month ago. For the rest, it’s all systems go; the boys really looking forward to giving 110%; some slavering editorial in the Caribbean papers about the chance of Lara taking back his record score from Hayden.
In other words, normality. Which is fine, but let’s just get the story straight and stick to it.