Board denies claims of Taylor rift

Zimbabwe Cricket has denied reports that Brendan Taylor has given it an ultimatum over his desire to play club cricket overseas.

Sources close to the player said he had given himself a cut-off date of Friday (June 6) to decide on his international career. Taylor had been trying to get permission from the board to play club cricket in Europe. "He is seriously considering resigning now," Cricinfo was told. "By end of week he would have made a decision."

However, this version of events was disputed by Lovemore Banda, ZC's media manager. "This gives the impression that ZC is an overbearing organisation that is unreasonably denying Taylor leave to play overseas," he told Cricinfo. "Nothing can be further from the truth.

"At the onset of the 2007-08 season, ZC made it clear to every player that they were expected to fulfil all their domestic obligations with the organisation and would only be free to play wherever they wanted after the end of the season (June 2). We have invested heavily by providing exposure to our nucleus of senior players over time. It is only proper that we get a return on that investment by having the players taking part in our domestic cricket and raising the standard of the local game.

"At the end of the season, the players are allowed to play in whichever country they accept an offer from, since ZC stands to benefit if the players remain exposed to a high level of play.

"We remain supportive of all our players and said as much in our letter of May 7 to Taylor, part of the last paragraph of which reads: 'We would therefore encourage you to complete your obligations as per the dates outlined and we remain supportive of whatever direction you so decide your career to take'."