United Cricket Board (UCB) president Ray Mali says he will not send opening batsman Herschelle Gibbs and spin bowler Nicky Boje on tour to India if there is any chance they be arrested on match-fixing charges.
Mali was reacting to reports that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) could not guarantee that Gibbs and Boje would not be arrested when they arrive in India for a tour starting in November.
”The UCB is dealing with the matter and I am not able to comment. But it is very important that there are guarantees in place that the two players will not be arrested,” Mali said. He said that whatever the outcome of the negotiations between the BCCI and the UCB, the tour will still go ahead. ”That is non-negotiable.”
He said he would understand if Gibbs and Boje decided not to go on tour.
Turning to the Zimbabwean cricket crisis, Mali said that his board and the Zimbabwe Cricket Union (ZCU), as well as the ICC, have been in touch with each other over the last four weeks.
Mali said in order to assist young cricketers in Zimbabwe, his board felt that the Zimbabwean international team should be entered in the South African domestic competition as a separate team.
”The UCB has full consensus about that,” he said.
Mali said he will be going to Dubai on June 10 where the issue of Zimbabwe’s cricket future will be discussed with Australia, India, Zimbabwe and the ICC. ”The position will be clearer after that meeting.”
Mali said the problem in Zimbabwe was that players refused to accept decisions by a democratically elected cricket union over the captaincy and team.
”I have always regarded those two aspects as the prerogative the cricket board. Players cannot prescribe who the captain or the selectors should be.”
By the same token the UCB would do everything possible to assist the ZCU in getting those players back into the Zimbabwean fold.
”I have been in touch with the ZCU and we believe that the UCB should give all those Zimbabwean cricket players — black and white — the opportunity to play cricket at the highest level at every opportunity.” – Sapa