Mlotshwa allays ZC fears

Sports Reporter
SPORT and Recreation Commission chairman Gerald Mlotshwa says he doesn’t see their impasse with suspended members of Zimbabwe Cricket eventually ending with the country being expelled from the International Cricket Council.

Mlotshwa said while the onus was on the suspended board members to trigger the mechanism necessary to ensure the fallout with the ICC which led to the suspension was resolved, he did not see the impasse eventually ending with the country’s expulsion from the global cricket of nations.

The ICC have directed that the suspended ZC board, led by Tavengwa Mukuhlani, should be reinstated before October 8 or Zimbabwe Cricket’s membership would be terminated in the same month.

The ZC board was suspended by the SRC after they defied a directive not to proceed with their annual meeting but the ICC have been singing in their corner and froze funding to Zimbabwe and outlawed participation by the country’s national teams in events under their auspices. Mlotshwa said, as SRC, it was never their intention when they made their intervention to see the country being suspended from the ICC and allayed concerns that the saga could result in the eventual expulsion of Zimbabwe Cricket.

“As SRC, it’s not a situation we want and we will deal with it, put it that way,’’ said Mlotshwa yesterday. “I don’t see it coming to that (expulsion of Zimbabwe Cricket).

“What I’m seeing is that we’ll get to a solution, the solution that we know we want, it’s there, it will come out.’’

He said the resolution of the impasse with the ICC had to start with the suspended ZC board members.

“It starts with the suspended directors, it’s to them that the ICC have said do something about the situation,’’ said Mlotshwa.

“We did not ask for the suspension, someone asked for it and it is that somebody to whom the ICC has written to and said “you got what you wanted, now deal with it.” The ICC wrote to Mukuhlani this week advising him that should his board not be reinstated by October 8, then there was the grim possibility Zimbabwe Cricket’s membership would be terminated.