Peas in a rotten pod

Peter Chingoka (top) and Robert Mugabe: four-year terms for both © Getty Images

The news that Peter Chingoka has been elected here for a new four-year term as head of Zimbabwe Cricket is about as surprising as last week's news that Robert Mugabe had decided that he would be extending his presidential tenure by the same period. It was also about as democratic, although at least ZC held an election of sorts.

The comparisons between ZC's patron - Mugabe - and its chairman do not end there. Both started their tenure in an era of hope and opportunity; after initial success both have overseen a period of alarmingly rapid decline; and now both are clinging on to power when the one decent thing they could do is admit their failings and disappear into the sunset.

Neither is likely to, however, and the country and the sport will lurch from crisis to crisis while the men at the helm search with increasing desperation for answers. They remain seemingly oblivious to the fact their continued presence is to the detriment of the thing they profess to care about, and, indeed, ignore the reality that stares them in the face as they claim things are on the up.

Chingoka has now been in office 14 years, and this latest "election" will take his term to 18. In the last four years he has overseen a player exodus unprecedented in sport since the regular desertion of communist athletes in the Cold War. The game he runs is financially bankrupt, and arguably morally so. Zimbabwe have twice suspended themselves from Test cricket in as many years, so far have they fallen, and only a few loyalists inside ZC and appeasers within the ICC really believe they will be in any state to resume Test cricket in 11 months' time.

And yet, as ever, Chingoka pretends all is well. In a press conference today he talked of his confidence that Bangladesh could be overturned as No. 9 in the world - the same Bangladesh who whitewashed Zimbabwe 5-0 earlier this month. Perhaps that was a result of another one of the board's achievements in the last year - the cancellation of the country's one first-class tournament. He then added his hopes that after leapfrogging Bangladesh, Zimbabwe "would be able to work our way up the ladder". From where Chingoka stands, he can't even see Bangladesh so far up the ladder are they, while the worst of the rest are lost in the clouds.

Without doubt the most ironic moment was when he said that "the good thing about the four-year terms is that there is continuity and financial control is stable". If it wasn't so sad it would be funny.

Chingoka has been accused of gross financial mismanagement by a number of leading stakeholders, although nothing has been proved and he continues to profess his innocence. The dissent which surfaced last year has effectively been eliminated by eliminating the dissenters (Mugabe would have nodded in approval at that) and scrapping the provinces they represented, replacing them with appointees.

And as for the finances, in March a full and thorough forensic audit was announced. Despite numerous attempts to find out just what the Harare-based auditor has found, nothing more has been heard and ZC's media department remains as cagey as ever. It's even money whether Chingoka's latest term expires or the audit is produced first.

So Chingoka soldiers on. The ICC will be happy as he is a man they can deal with, one of "them". As long as he continues to smile and maintain all is well, that will be good enough for them.

As for Zimbabwe cricket, it's much like the country itself. The future is grim, and what hope is there that the man who led them into the darkness will be the one who can lead them back into the light.