Australia to go ahead with Zimbabwe tour

The ongoing crisis in Zimbabwe will have no impact on Australia's proposed tour to that country in May this year. Graeme Vimpani, spokesman for Cricket Australia, clarified that the board was happy with security arrangements in Zimbabwe, and that the tour would go ahead as planned.

"We fully support the ICC's future tours program, which requires all ICC Test-playing nations to play each other home and abroad at least once every five years, so we have a bigger picture in mind I guess and, as I said, safety and security are our primary concern," he said. "Should we ever feel that the safety and security of the touring group is ever going to be compromised, that's when we would seriously look at not touring.

"But we've had our pre-tour inspection and all the boxes have been ticked and we're going to be going ahead as planned."

Australia are scheduled to play two Tests and three ODIs in Zimbabwe, with the first Test starting on May 22 at Harare.