England Captain Michael Vaughan and his squad did not have to wait long for a reminder of why they hesitated so long before travelling to Zimbabwe on Friday. Just around the corner from Miekles, their five-star downtown hotel, on a wall on Robert Mugabe Avenue, someone has scrawled ”England go home, shame on England.” And ”England go back”.
The opportunistic graffiti could hardly have been missed by the players as they departed for practice at the Harare Sports Ground, venue for the first match tomorrow.
On the streets around Miekles the cricketers’ arrival has been noted by those who might benefit from the travelling circus, and any visitor emerging from the hotel quickly receives offers to change currency on the black market.
Robert sculpts small ebony animals and sells them on the street. He also tries to trade currency, and offers Z$8 500 for US $1, which he will sell on for Z$10 000 – the official rate is around Z$6 000 — and explains that the cricketers are welcome.
”We were very angry when the cricketers did not come here for the World Cup, and we are happy that they are here now. Sport has a message of peace and harmony, not about politics. There is a problem though that if all the money goes to the hotels and then to the banks, it will be used by the government, not for the people. What we really need is not cricket, but change.”
In the members bar of the Harare Sports Club they gave up on change long ago, and the all-white clientele while away the afternoons in drink and conversation. The club, across the road from the high walls of Mugabe’s residence, was established in 1897 thanks to a cheque for £50 signed by Cecil Rhodes that still hangs on the clubhouse wall. It remains a refuge for those far happier to wallow in the distant past than deal with the present.
”The people tense about this are the press and the politicians, for the rest of us life has to go on,” says Brian, vodka and Coke in hand as he watched the England players warm up on the outfield.
”We wondered whether the tour was going to happen, but in the end it is because the president wants it to. It’s the same with everything. If he wants it to, it will happen.”
The saloon bar analysis was echoed by a diplomatic source. ”I don’t really know why the decision on accreditation was reversed, but you have to assume it was because the big man is in favour,” they said.
The decision of the English team to continue with their tour to Zimbabwe followed the lifting of the bar that the Mugabe government had imposed on some British reporters entering the country.
Zimbabwe’s Independent newspaper claimed that Jonathan Moyo, the government’s information minister responsible for the bans, had been overruled by Nathan Shamuyarira, his counterpart within Zanu-PF, the ruling party.
Shamuruyarira’s intervention came, the paper claimed, because ”Zimbabwe needs the series to communicate an impression of normalcy”.
In the government-controlled Herald, the British media were reported to be ”tripping over each other” to come into the country. ”We are quite aware that in this huge media core there are a number of elements on a covert mission using cricket as a cover,” cautioned a security source. ”We are definitely on the lookout.”
While the tour preoccupies players, press and politicians, not everyone in Harare is cricket-obsessed. In a country with rampant inflation and high unemployment, there are more pressing concerns than bat and ball. ”I’m not sure anyone really worries about whether the cricketers came here or not,” said Roy, who works in the tourism industry. ”It is all about politics anyway, not sport.”
”Inflation is the main problem here,” he says, hauling a three-inch-thick wad of notes, his daily spending money, from his pocket.
”I bought my van for Z$68 000 a few years ago. This morning I had a puncture repaired and it cost my Z$70 000.
”It’s good in one way that the team are here, because they will bring in millions and millions of dollars for the hotels and the restaurants, but most people won’t be able to afford to buy a ticket to watch them.”
There was at least one man in Harare last night willing to view the tour in isolation. Speaking for the first time since the squad arrived, ECB chairperson David Morgan insisted that politics and morality were no grounds for cancellation of the tour, and said the tour was the only way to achieve closure for English cricket.
”Within the international cricket community, were we not to fulfil this tour, Zimbabwe would have been nothing short of a painful running sore.
”I firmly believe that if we are to achieve closure on the Zimbabwe affair, then we need to play cricket in Zimbabwe.” – Guardian Unlimited