ICC works to find Zimbabwe solution
Officially, the ICC is not getting drawn too deeply in the crisis threatening Zimbabwe cricket, but various newspaper reports over the weekend have indicated that it is working hard behind the scenes to try and broker a solution
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The ICC is under increasing pressure from certain sectors of the cricketing world to end its policy of staying out of what Ehsan Mani, the ICC's president, described as a "domestic issue ... internal to the Zimbabwe cricket community".
The makeshift Zimbabwe side's poor performances against Sri Lanka has raised awareness of the depth of the crisis, and there is genuine fear that the forthcoming matches against Australia could humiliate them and bring the game into ridicule.
The first indication that the ICC was getting involved came last Friday when the Zimbabwe Cricket Union surprisingly announced that it had extended the deadline for the rebels to return to the fold by another 21 days. That came four days after the board has fired them just as it seemed that mediation would take place.
The rebels are preparing to meet again with their lawyer on Monday, but there are signs that some of them have had enough. Sean Ervine, 21, was the first to jump ship, and on Wednesday he told his colleagues that he was quitting and left for Australia where reports suggest he is going to apply for residency. Others, depressed and weary with their treatment, are expected to follow.
What could be the crucial factor is that the ZCU has refused to agree to mediation, which was one of its original offers. It claimed that the players' attitude was to blame, and that they were only using mediation as a tool to try and force arbitration.
Grant Flower, the unofficial spokesman for the rebels, was quoted in the Sunday Telegraph as saying that he believed the ZCU's about-turn came about because they failed to deal with the dismissals correctly on Monday. "It seems," he explained, "that they may have made a mistake by firing us in the first place. Obviously they want us to play against Australia to prop up the system. We want to get back and play but if this dispute is not resolved properly our stand will be a waste of time."
The sudden change of tack by the Zimbabwe Cricket Union on Friday came as a surprise to most who have been following this whole sorry affair. It seemed on Monday, when the board dismissed the rebel players, that the end of the road had been reached.
The sackings also caught most people on the hop, coming as they did as the players had just agreed to mediation with the board. The feeling among those involved was that the so-called political hardliners inside the ZCU had won the behind-the-scenes battle for control.
But despite denials to the contrary, legally the board was on shaky ground, and the rebels immediately countered by threatening to sue for unfair dismissal. That, allied to increasing behind-the-scenes manoeuvring by the ICC, were the main reasons that the ZCU offered another 21-day deadline.
But the offer isn't as magnanimous as it might at first appear. The main sticking point first time round was that the board only offered mediation, while the rebels wanted arbitration, making it fairly clear that they did not trust ZCU to honour any promises. Their eleventh-hour acceptance of a mediator was agreed in the hope that if the two parties met, the board could be persuaded to go to arbitration.
The final paragraph of the ZCU's statement on Friday said that it was "concerned about the lack of bona fides of the players towards the process" and that it would "not pursue the mediation issue any further". Without the offer of mediation, it is hard to see the rebels going back to work.
Sadly, the ZCU's offer appears to be little more than a backside-covering operation on its part. And given that the board now appears to be under more political control than ever, there is even less reason in the rebel players' minds why it should be trusted.
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