Players' association hits out at Australian board

The Federation of International Cricketers Associations (FICA) has hit out at Cricket Australia for agreeing to play a three-match one-day series in Zimbabwe. The two-Test series was scrapped on Friday, pre-empting the ICC's move to strip the matches of Test status, but the Australian board decided to go ahead with the one-dayers to avoid the risk of being fined for breaching the international cricket programme.

"It's possible that there would be a fine," said Malcolm Speed, the ICC chief executive. "But in any event that's hypothetical because Australia has agreed to play matches."

However, Richard Bevan, the joint-chief executive of FICA, condemned the Australian board's action, saying that it sealed the fate of the 15 rebel players, who were sacked again by the ZCU on Friday. Bevan suggested that Bob Merriman, Cricket Australia's chairman, should have asked the ICC to decide on the matter.

"If you were to suspend Zimbabwe completely from the one-day matches and the Champions Trophy what you would do is you would force the Zimbabwe board to resign ... or it would bring the guys back to the table," Bevan said. "Effectively, by Bob Merriman negotiating with the ZCU and coming to this conclusion, it's robbed us all of actually having the Zimbabwe cricket position put to a vote.

"And gone to a vote, it probably would have seen the one-day and the Test matches removed and then they would have had to have brought the 15 players back."

As things stand, Australia will play three one-dayers against a second-string Zimbabwe side in Harare on May 25, 27 and 29.