Netherlands will not tour Zimbabwe

Cricinfo can reveal that Netherlands will not tour Zimbabwe in October, and that reports they were planning to were wide of the mark as the idea was only floated in very general terms at a scheduling meeting last August.

"Netherlands will not visit Zimbabwe for the simple reason that nothing is scheduled," Maarten Westermaan, the Netherlands board's chief executive, told Cricinfo. "We were never asked to play in Zimbabwe. It was nothing more then a suggestion, written in gray, which means it has no status at all. We will not use this opportunity for several non-political reasons, like funding and timing. There has been no contact with the Dutch government, nor with the cricket authorities in Zimbabwe.

It had been reported that Netherlands' trip was part of the ICC High Performance Programme, but that was denied by an ICC spokesman. "It was mentioned in passing at a scheduling meeting but it never went any further than that," an ICC spokesman told Cricinfo. "It never even got to discussion stage and [contrary to reports] it never formed part of any confirmed schedule. We always encourage our members to talk to one another with the view to setting up tours but in this instance we were not party to any discussion."

With the KNBC pressed for funds and Zimbabwe Cricket, despite a massive financial injection from the World Cup, also strapped for cash, it was always hard to see how the numbers would add up. Although there would have been at least two full ODIs should the tour have proceeded, they were unlikely to attract any interest from broadcasters and so the boards would have had to find all the costs between them.