Zimbabwe’s abysmal record low of 35 all out on Sunday against Sri Lanka has brought the country’s cricket crisis to its lowest and most dangerous point.
And yet many feel it might be just what is needed to bring the warring administrators and players to an accommodation that would set in motion a healing process.
The debacle at Harare Sports Club against a bemused Sri Lanka was the culmination of a sequence of events beginning 24 days ago and has been a tragedy of errors and stubborn attitudes.
The point has been reached in this saga when the Zimbabwe Cricket Union (ZCU) and the 15 striking white professionals are now forced to come to an early agreement or take responsibility for even further decline after 12 years of Test status.
Because the stakes are so high, the group of rebels and the ZCU board of directors must be prepared to lose some face, make some major concessions and change their attitudes.
Goodwill might be asking too much considering the level of animosity.
Opinion in Harare is there are three options available and even getting to any one of them will mean significance concessions on both sides.
They are:
- A meeting between ZCU chairperson Peter Chingoka, two other board members and chief executive Vincent Hogg with ousted captain Heath Streak, senior professional Grant Flower, one junior player and their lawyer Chris Venturas. After the shouting matches of the previous meetings they were being urged to spend whatever time is necessary to reach a compromise.
- Call in independent arbitration with its findings to be binding.
- The International Cricket Council (ICC) steps in.
The underlying cause of the crisis is what the white players perceive as a quota system for novice black players.
Blacks feel whites are being obstructive and protective of their own long-held position.
Cricket was a white man’s sport in Rhodesia but after Zimbabwe won the ICC Trophy three years running, and with the elevation to ZCU president (now chairperson) of a black businessman, Peter Chingoka, attitudes changed.
The predominantly African and Asian board of directors decided the development of blacks was too slow and a formal integration process was put in place.
This meant a large coaching structure nationwide, the construction of school pitches, funding for clubs and equipment, education for promising youngsters and a cricket academy.
The aim was to locate talented black players and bring them into the national side.
Several black players have been introduced into the Zimbabwe Test and one-day international teams in recent years, beginning with Henry Olonga, who was a relative success.
Hamilton Masakadza scored a maiden Test century before he was 18 years old and then went off to university in South Africa. Tatenda Taibu has been a phenomenal success. Medium pacer Douglas Hondo has earned his place as first change.
But the selectors have persisted with the failures, bringing matters to a head.
Streak decided on April 2 to object to certain players and, more importantly, to three of the five selectors — Steven Mangongo, Macsood Ebrahim and Ali Shah, the first two on the grounds they had not played first-class cricket, Shah because he was doubling as a TV commentator on the Bangladesh tour.
Streak told Hogg of his demands which Hogg presented as an ”ultimatum” to the directors, who decided he was in effect resigning.
Streak was supported by the senior white players who refused to make themselves available for the Sri Lanka one-day series.
In taking this line they broke the terms of their contracts and the ZCU has given them until May 7, the second day of the first of two Tests against Sri Lanka, to step back into line.
The response of several of the players to this threat was to go on holiday.
A call for independent arbitration in return for an immediate return of the whites was rejected by the rebels.
The Zimbabwe controversy is seen as perhaps the biggest the sport has known since Basil d’Oliveira and South Africa’s apartheid years. — Sapa-AFP