Zimbabwe have scrapped their two-Test series with Australia but will play three one-day internationals, it was reported on Friday.
The decision was to be announced formally later on Friday morning.
Television commentator and former Test player Dean Jones told reporters the Test series has been cancelled after interviewing Cricket Australia’s head of operations, Michael Brown.
The one-day internationals will be played in Harare on May 25, 27 and 29.
The Australian management agreed to stay for the one-day internationals after meeting Zimbabwe Cricket Union (ZCU) chairperson Peter Chingoka and chief executive Vincent Hogg.
The ZCU pair went immediately to the union offices to inform the board of directors.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) in London has also been notified.
The ICC had been due to hold a teleconference vote on whether to strip the matches of Test status.
Australian cricket chiefs had said they would be unlikely to play the matches if they were demoted from Test status.
Zimbabwe cricket has been ripped apart by a strike by 15 senior players protesting against the ZCU’s selection policies, the make-up of the selection panel and the decision not to reinstate deposed captain Heath Streak.
Five striking white players — Streak, Stuart Carlisle, Andy Blignaut, Ray price and Trevor Gripper — were named in the 18-man Zimbabwe squad on Wednesday.
But they told the selectors they will not play because they lack match fitness and because a promised letter stating that legal action against them was being withdrawn failed to arrive at their lawyer’s office.
The first Australia Test had been due to start in Harare on Saturday and would have pitted the most powerful Test nation in the world against a team of mainly teenagers whose past two results have been losses by an innings and 240 runs and an innings and 254 runs to Sri Lanka. — Sapa-AFP