A very unfunny comedy show

Peter Chingoka: four more years at the helm © Getty Images

Steven Price, Cricinfo's Zimbabwe correspondent, takes a look at the new board which was elected to run the game for the next four years

On a second analytic look, the new Zimbabwe Cricket substantive board list reads like a comedy script.

The dearth of cricket on the board is as shocking as it is ludicrous. Only re-elected chairman Peter Chingoka possess a morsel of the kind of cricket expertise required of a - supposed - Test nation. In effect, the new board is worse than the government-appointed interim committee it replaced a week ago.

From the interim committee, gone are three gaffers who added an outline of respectability even in the eyes of some of its hardest critics. Crispen Tsvarayi, the firebrand but said-to-be knowledgeable strategist, had an acrimonious fallout with the Chingoka regime and was booted out. Veteran administrator Stan Staddon, who set on the previous substantive board disbanded by the government-run Sports and Recreation Commission last year, was not re-elected. Also out is Levy Hombarume, who although personally without a sound cricketing background was headmaster at Churchill High at the time the Harare school churned out several national stars, including former captain Tatenda Taibu. Before the board elections, Hombarume applied and got a fulltime job in ZC as the senior schools manager, seemingly realising he would not meet minimum requirements for reelection as set by the new constitution.

This board is made up of people only too grateful to be in it, whose standing has been questioned by a respected administrator. "We expect a lot of scrambling and concerns over funds. What we are now faced with are hungry little children who have been left alone in a house with sugar, and if you grew up in rural Zimbabwe in my day, you know what will happen to the sugar."

Nothing of value is expected from these passive board members other than gratefully granting a majority, when needed or if so needed, to Chingoka, his vice Tavengwa Mukuhlani, and managing director Ozias Bvute, a trio appropriately described by Tsvarayi as "the board within a board." They will centralise the whims of power, more so freely now, among themselves.

In addition, the continuous presence on the board of Sylvester Matshaka, a government official initially slotted in to the interim committee, may also mean that government will still have a say in the running of Zimbabwe cricket long after the disappearance of the interim committee.

'The make-up of the new board sweeps aside any passing nod to towards racial integration'

And in what may attract ICC's attention, the make-up of the new board sweeps aside any passing nod to towards racial integration. Percy Sonn, the ICC's president, and Malcolm Speed, it's chief executive, were in Zimbabwe on a fact-finding mission last year where they stressed that point, as well as the need to have a capable, overall board.

The new set-up has found wanting on both. That is not good for the national game, and it remains to be seen if the ICC has anything to say about a situation it would never tolerate in other countries.

"In the case of Zimbabwe we have consistently emphasised that the best and most appropriate way forward is for all groups involved with cricket in the country - administrators, past and current players, supporters and those who may feel disenfranchised - to come together in a spirit of cooperation.

"It may seem easier said than done but all groups must recognise that is the way in which the internal issues that have affected the game of cricket in Zimbabwe can be resolved. If it happens then it would, in turn, help to foster an appropriate environment for a renaissance in Zimbabwe cricket that everyone desires."