Bank officials raid ZC offices

Themba Mliswa: 'Taibu and some of his charges are now engaged in a dirty war, emanating from petty racial wars fomented by a known clique of the Asian and white groups in Zimbabwean cricket' © Cricinfo

The row engulfing Zimbabwe cricket continued to rumble on, with reports that the authorities had raided the offices of Zimbabwe Cricket at the national academy and that Peter Chingoka, the board chairman, and Ozias Bvute, the managing director, continued to help officials of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe with their investigations.

The RBZ are remaining tight-lipped about the line of their enquiries, but sources inside Zimbabwe suggest they are probing a number of the claims made in the dossier compiled by the provincial chairmen.

There was some progress yesterday, however, with the announcement that the board had concluded negotiations with the players over contracts and other outstanding issues. "It was a positive meeting," Wilfred Mukondiwa, ZC's human resources manager, said. "We were in agreement as far as those were concerned."

While that would seem to remove one of the grievances aired by the players last week, it seems unlikely that the threat made by them to strike will be withdrawn as long as Chingoka and Bvute remain at the helm. The players made it clear that they were not prepared to play while the pair remained in charge.

And while Tatenda Taibu remains in hiding after receiving threatening telephone calls after the players made their statement last Thursday, the fiercely pro-government Herald newspaper, which totally ignored all last week's events, launched a savage attack on him.

In an interview with Themba Mliswa, the chairman of Mashonaland West, one of the new provinces critics claim have been created to give the ZC board enough votes to survive the rebellion by the established provincial set-ups, Taibu is accused of selling out.

"It is quite disturbing that Taibu and some of his charges are now engaged in a dirty war, emanating from petty racial wars fomented by a known clique of the Asian and white groups in Zimbabwean cricket," said Mliswa. "I have also realised that his (Taibu's) game has deteriorated for a captain and he has abandoned the game of rules for the one with unwritten rules, which is politics."

Mliswa, who has had no involvement in cricket until recent weeks, said that he supported the investigations into the board's activities. "If there are any violations, we humbly submit that the probe must go on, but the investigations must cover the entire ZC board and management. Accountability, transparency and honesty are key values or cornerstones of any organisation's success, ZC included."

Those comments would be of interest to the Zimbabweans who claim they were duped by Mliswa in a scheme he ran to bring them into the UK which left many being deported on arrival. The venture was eventually cited by the UK authorities as the reason for Mliswa himself being deported in 2002.