Zimbabwe Cricket Union (ZCU) chief executive Vincent Hogg has resigned.
Hogg has notified ZCU chairperson Peter Chingoka and the 12-man board of directors of his decision and will quit his functions after the ZCU annual meeting scheduled for August 8.
Confirming his resignation, Hogg was not immediately prepared to give his reasons for quitting, adding: ”A ZCU statement will be issued shortly.”
His resignation comes after the ZCU union agreed last week to suspend its Test matches for the remainder of 2004 following a row over 15 sacked white players following the sacking of the captain Heath Streak.
Streak had objected to the selection policies of the ZCU which he claimed were compromising the success of the national team.
A second-string side was heavily beaten by Sri Lanka prompting calls about the integrity of cricket.
Australia’s two-Test series in Zimbabwe was cancelled last month because of the weakness of the opposition although they did play three one-dayers.
Hogg was head-hunted in February 2002 as a replacement for David Ellman-Brown, a former lawyer and ZCU chairperson.
He was an international standard fast bowler with Zimbabwe, who in the late 1960’s and the 1970’s played in the South African Currie Cup before building up a high level experience in the Harare world of financial management.
Hogg’s task with the ZCU had been to oversee the development and smooth running of cricket in Zimbabwe as it moved into its second decade as a Test nation and as a full member of the International Cricket Council (ICC).
He had control of a staff exceeding 250 and a multi-million dollar budget.
However, the sacking of Streak, which led to an increasingly hostile stand-off between the union and the striking white players, the inevitable racial overtones, the consequent loss of Test cricket and his increasingly untenable position as the man in the middle of the row, have undoubtedly been the main contributory causes of his decision to quit.
It was Hogg who, at Streak’s request, passed on to the directors at a formal meeting the former captain’s objections to certain national selectors, which triggered the crisis.
Hogg will not now be attending the ICC executive meeting with Chingoka on June 30 which will either ratify a six months moratorium on Test cricket for Zimbabwe agreed last week in Dubai, or order a suspension.
The ICC have said they will be appointing a troubleshooter to investigate the claims of racism in the game in Zimbabwe. – Sapa-AFP