Another journalist deported from Zimbabwe

A second cricket journalist has been deported from Zimbabwe. Telford Vice, who was covering the five-match one-day series between Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka for Reuters, was forced to leave the country on Friday after being refused press accreditation.

An exhausted Vice, speaking from Johannesburg International Airport last night as he waited for a flight to Durban, said Reuters made the decision to send him to cover the series late and thus his accreditation application did not completely comply with Zimbabwe's stringent rules. Journalists need to get accreditation from both the Zimbabwean government and the Zimbabwe Cricket Union, and the government accreditation alone costs US$600.

Vice arrived in Zimbabwe on Monday, and without hope of getting his accreditation, it was "suggested" that he leave the country. "It was quite a tense climate," he said. "The thing with Zimbabwe is that everything is politicised. It felt like South Africa in the 1980s."

Last week the Daily Telegraph cricket writer Mihir Bose was deported from Zimbabwe, after also submitting a late application for accreditation.