Cricket Australia sanctions Zimbabwe tour

Cricket Australia has said that Australia's tour of Zimbabwe will go ahead as planned. Steve Bernard, the manager of the team, said that the Australians were satisfied with the security arrangements made by the Zimbabwe Cricket Union (ZCU), and that it would take "something drastic" to derail the tour now.

"There's no doubt we're coming, unless something drastic has to happen just before the tour," Bernard said. "We were coming anyhow but we had to make all the necessary security checks ahead of the tour."

An Australian delegation has spent the last two days inspecting the arrangements in Harare and Bulwayo, the venues for the Tests. Bernard took pains to stress that even this was routine procedure before any tour. "We would want to stress that the pre-checks we are conducting are not only for Zimbabwe but we have had security checks in Sri Lanka and the West Indies, where our teams have played before."