ECB: Moral crusaders, or appeasers?

Jun 29 2008 by Neil Farrington, Sunday Sun

DOES the following statement fairly sum up the political situation in Zimbabwe today?

“The electoral environment is such that it is impossible to run free and fair elections because the regime has created conditions impossible for free campaigning, free media practice or an independent electoral commission.”

Yes, I thought so too.

Reason enough for the England and Wales Cricket Board’s decision to sever ties with their Zimbabwean equivalent, surely?

Well, yes and no.

Trouble is, you see, the above statement above was made by Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai three-and-a-half years ago . . .

Just as England prepared to play the opening one-day international of their tour of . . . Zimbabwe.

If you need further confirmation that things were all but as bad there in December 2004 as they are now, it’s that Tsvangiri had recently been imprisoned for treason, and scores of white farmers forcibly evicted from their land. Others had been murdered.

So how come the ECB now not only see fit to ban Zimbabwe’s cricketers from touring here, but also to declare: “We deplore the position in Zimbabwe and, like Cricket South Africa, find this untenable”?

Why do the ECB claim the moral high ground today, having got down and dirty with the lowlife Robert Mugabe in his own backyard not so way back when?

I wish I could believe it was a conscience call. But it looks much more like a case of needs must.

In 2004, you see, the ECB feared financial ruin if England were, as seemed likely, suspended from Test cricket by the International Cricket Council for not going to Zimbabwe.

And we’ve already established the situation there was hardly any less deplorable then.

In other words, what price principles when profits are at stake?

I also wish I could believe the ECB wouldn’t now have done the same again in similar circumstances.

Were the ICC not themselves ready to discuss banning Zimbabwe from cricket worldwide, few would have bet a penny on our lot defying them.

For the fact that the announcement re next year’s tour only arrived on the day our Government made clear its feelings on the matter, showed how readily the ECB still bend the knee.

Moral crusaders? Appeasers, more like.