Zimbabwe cricket officials were confident a strike by their senior players would be ended on Wednesday.
International Cricket Council chief executive Malcolm Speed’s visit to Harare and efforts by a group of provincial cricket chairpersons may have helped to reach a settlement.
Zimbabwe Cricket Union (ZCU) chief executive Vincent Hogg was adamant the two-Test series against Australia starting on Saturday will go ahead.
”The ZCU [has] scheduled two Test matches and three one-day matches and there is no change in the format,” Hogg said.
”We have not been advised by the ICC [International Cricket Council] to change the format.”
Although Speed has consistently maintained he is not prepared to be a broker in the seven-week dispute between the players and their inion, he would certainly have warned about the consequences of the strike continuing.
These warnings most probably helped to galvanise both sides into finding at least a temporary solution while the Australians are in the country.
The ZCU plans to name its side to play Australia on Thursday.
That is effectively a deadline for the rebels to end their protest against the ZCU’s selection policies, the make-up of the selection panel and the decision not to reinstate deposed captain Heath Streak.
Streak said he would be disappointed if the Tests were scrapped.
Zimbabwe coach Geoff Marsh, whose young side was beaten by an innings and 254 runs by Sri Lanka in the second Test in Bulawayo this week, said he had doubts whether the side could keep taking such thrashings.
”They’re getting a pasting out there and what I don’t know what effect that will have on these young players,” he said.
Marsh, who has not renewed his contract and will resign in September, was unsure if the coming Tests should go ahead.
Zimbabwe will be without batsman Dion Ebrahim for their next match. Ebrahim, the player with the most Test experience outside the rebel group, was suspended for one match after he said a leg break bowled to him by Sri Lankan offspinner Muttiah Muralitharan was ”the first legal delivery he’s bowled”. — Sapa-AFP