Zim cricket needs help

Robson Sharuko Senior Sports Editor
AT some point this afternoon, Brian Vitori is likely to open Zimbabwe’s attack in the first Twenty20 against Pakistan at Harare Sports Club, supported on the other end by either Tendai Chatara or Tinashe Panyangara.It’s an historic moment, the first time that Zimbabwe will field an all-black seam attack, and while it has taken this country a good 21 years, after gaining our Test status to get there, those who have toiled in the trenches developing this talent will toast the grand occasion.

But it all comes at a huge cost, keeping such a talent production conveyor belt ticking, and for Zimbabwe Cricket it hasn’t been made any easier by the storms that the organisation has had to weather in the past decade.

Amid the excitement that will be triggered by a flurry of runs and the fall of wickets at Harare Sports Club today, it’s unlikely to mask the reality that ZC are sitting on a huge debt of about US$4 million and the organisation is likely to lose a further US$1 million just hosting Pakistan in their month-long adventure in this country.

To their credit, ZC have been working wonders to try and reduce their debt and the organisation’s chairman, Peter Chingoka, revealed recently that in the past year alone, they scaled down their losses by more than US$4 million.

This difficult financial situation has seen the ZC struggling to meet its obligations, including payments to its staff, and this has occasionally unsettled the dressing room of the national team.

No sporting organisation in this country has suffered the brutal battering that Zimbabwe Cricket has received, at the hands of Western forces, which has had a direct hand in eroding its financial base and, in the process, made it very difficult for them to continue nursing their developmental programmes the way they used to do it the past.

No sporting organisation in this country has been targeted, by Western politicians with an axe to grind with this country’s politics or its political leaders, the way Zimbabwe Cricket has been hammered and the boardroom squeeze has come at a huge cost, in terms of revenue generation, for this game.

Politics has bowled out matches against England, in the past 10 years, and Chingoka recently conceded that, without hosting box-office tours against the likes of England, Australia and India, the finances of the organisation will remain in disarray.

“Financially, we are ailing. We are a country where we repeat a four-year cycle from World Cup to World Cup. Playing countries other than India, England and Australia, we are faced with huge losses despite earnings from television rights,” Chingoka said recently in a frank interview with The Indian Express newspaper.

“The series against Bangladesh cost us millions of dollars and we have to spend that million because we need to give our boys exposure.
“England have not been here due to their political stand and they have not helped Zimbabwe in any way. Due to the economy, very few sponsors are coming forward.

“We are struggling but we hope that the coming six-to-eight years will be better. Going by the latest report, we are four million dollars in debt.”

As Zimbabwe takes steps into a new political dispensation, after the harmonised elections brought to an end the unity government, sport expects a better helping hand from the government and no sporting discipline deserves that helping hand better than cricket.

Given how it has suffered, as the sporting pawn of the political battles that Western forces have been fighting in the past decade, it is only fair that Zimbabwe Cricket receives priority, as a sporting discipline that needs direct government help, to help it balance its fragile books.

A good starting point would be for the government to take over the debt, or a huge chunk of that debt, as part of its appreciation for the blows that this sporting organisation, has taken from political opponents of this country, and which has battered its financial base.

Or, if that is not possible, the government should play a leading role in urging local companies, those that have a vision for a better future of this country, to come and help Zimbabwe Cricket in a very big way in terms of funding and wiping out their debt.

It’s very unlikely that Zimbabwe will host a box-office cricket contest against England soon and the reason is all political.
“The problem is simple,” British Sports Minister, Hugh Robertson, told The Daily Telegraph in a policy declaration on the state of the sporting relationship between the England and Wales Cricket Board and Zimbabwe Cricket in 2010 and, three years down the line, nothing has changed.

“Zimbabwe Cricket is headed by a man who sits on the EU banned list and he sits on that list for good reasons.
“As long as he is in charge of Zimbabwe cricket it is extremely difficult for them to be fully integrated into the global cricketing community.

“Officially government advice remains we discourage teams from playing. England will be discouraged from travelling over there and it is difficult for them to come here while their chairman remains on the banned list.

“It is very difficult to welcome a team here if the chairman cannot get a visa to enter this country.”
Certainly, judging from Robertson’s position, the stand-off has nothing to do with sport but everything to do with politics.

The big question that we should be asking ourselves is for how long should Zimbabwe Cricket, which is clearly being battered for bigger political battles that have nothing to do with sport, shoulder the burden of keeping itself on its feet without direct support from the government?

Clearly, this is a sporting organisation that needs direct and substantial government support, to help cushion it against the effects that the political standoff has had on its coffers, because letting it collapse would be playing right into the hands of those who have been fighting huge boardroom battles, in Western capitals, to destroy this game.

Not so long ago, domestic cricket was an elitist sporting discipline and when its leaders made a conscious decision to open it to everyone, including the majority black population, it put them on a collision course against those who believed this game didn’t need such reforms.

There were accusations of racism levelled against the ZC leadership, the entire bloc of white players walked out on the game nine years ago, and although the parties appear to have buried their differences, there are a host of extremists out there who are still waging a fight, in the shadows, against Zimbabwe Cricket.

That is why even a decision by one player like Kyle Jarvis to turn his back on the national team and opt for county cricket in England is celebrated in certain quarters because, in their world, it represents yet another small, but significant, victory in their battle to try and bring Zimbabwe Cricket to its knees.

Yes, Jarvis is right to say that his job security is guaranteed better at English county side Lancashire than at Zimbabwe Cricket, but what should we let this organisation be bled to its death, losing its fine talents, by some foreign forces who have made it the target of their political missiles?

The ball is in our court.