Rebels rattle the cage of reconciliation

Heath Streak: 'If it wasn't for the good of cricket, we wouldn't be coming back' © Getty Images

After a year of bitter infighting the long-running dispute between Zimbabwe's white `rebel' players and their cricket board appears to be over. But, as with most things in this troubled country, many questions remain unanswered and talk of a new dawn for Zimbabwe cricket seems premature.

Events have moved quickly. Back in November Heath Streak, at his cattle ranch near Bulawayo, saw little hope of a rapprochement. Sitting under a thatched veranda, watching much needed rain fall on the dry Matabeleland earth, he spoke of the Zimbabwe Cricket chairman Peter Chingoka and managing director Ozias Bvute with contempt and a sense of betrayal. The ZC officials, for their part, characterised the rebels as "spoilt children" who could not handle authority.

Four months on nothing could be more different. Streak, having just signed a six-month contract with ZC, is rushed out to join the struggling Zimbabwe tour of South Africa. In his first game back he hits a useful 68 to make defeat in the third and final ODI more respectable. Meanwhile the swashbuckling allrounder Andy Blignaut put an end to his disastrous stint with Tasmania and joined the Test squad in Cape Town. And the batsmen Stuart Carlisle and Trevor Gripper, and the uncapped Neil Ferreira, are negotiating contracts to join the A team in their series against Bangladesh. Some who moved abroad to start lives elsewhere are also rumoured to be considering their options, such as Craig Wishart and even Ray Price and Sean Ervine, who have Kolpak deals with Worcestershire and Hampshire.

Only Grant Flower, Zimbabwe's most capped player, has ruled out a return due to his deal at Essex. "When I left I was under the impression the players wanted two people off the board and proper selection," Flower says. "Whether that's happened since I don't know. They [ZC] have promised a lot in the past and not come through with it."

Bvute, the man seen as the real power at ZC, tells TWC that the sides have kissed and made up: "I'm sitting here in Port Elizabeth having breakfast with Heath. We've drawn a line in the sand. If you're married and you have a fight with your wife, it doesn't mean the relationship's over. You work through it." Streak, while not quite as cosy, sounds happy to be back: "I can't deny the negotiations have been very positive. We had very strong principles and, if it wasn't for the good of cricket, we wouldn't be coming back."

The reason why such a rancorous dispute has been settled is simple enough. For all the bluster from Bvute about Tatenda Taibu's young side giving Bangladesh "a torrid time", defeat there in both the Test and ODI series was a nadir that could not be revisited. With all the speculation about Zimbabwe being downgraded to a second-tier nation, ZC was afraid the ICC would intervene.

ZCU general manager Ozias Bvute: 'If you're married and you have a fight with your wife, it doesn't mean the relationship's over. You work through it' © Getty Images

Moreover ZC is in financial difficulties and the insurance group Old Mutual is understood to have made a new sponsorship deal conditional on the rebels coming back. One senior figure is alleged to have warned the rebels privately that cricket in Zimbabwe "had only six months to live". Streak admits the real danger of ICC intervention: "We didn't want a scenario where we played only home series or were subject to a twotier system. Test cricket would have died in Zimbabwe."

But, if the ZC was backed into a corner, the players too were in a tight spot. "There was a sense these guys were sitting around, waiting for something to happen," says Streak's former team-mate Henry Olonga. "A lot of cricket was being played without them and they weren't earning any money." Streak, with a Warwickshire contract, was less affected financially but Olonga, who has known him since high school, says he will have clear personal goals to reach, such as 300 Test wickets. In the end both sides were in a hole and needed the other one to survive.

Nevertheless, obstacles to a deal were daunting. In particular the rebels' demand that the convenor of selectors Max Ebrahim and Bvute - neither of whom has first-class experience - be sacked presented huge problems. A deal was brokered through the ad hoc committee set up by the government's Sport and Recreation Commission. The three-man committee, which included the former Currie Cup leg-spinner Jackie du Preez, was charged with eliciting the rebels' conditions for returning and acting as go-between with ZC. Against all odds they won the players' trust. So successful were the meetings with the rebels - or so urgent the situation - that even before the committee's official report was handed to the ZC board in March the dispute seemed to be over.

The outcome appears to be that Ebrahim will be removed from his post and that the ZC will drop its integration "goals", which Bvute, as director of integration, had aggressively championed in the lead-up to the dispute. Bvute himself seems set to remain and in order to protect ZC's pride it seems these measures will not be implemented immediately or made officially public.

As one rebel says: "There is going to have to be a lot of face-saving on both sides. Some issues from our dispute have been resolved, some haven't." Another source privy to the rebels' negotiations reveals that, while some of the ZC's concessions have been put in writing, others are as yet mere promises. Chingoka and Bvute have, of course, denied offering the players guarantees. But the former's comment about ZC's integration goals appears to signal a shift. "The goals were set from 2001 to 2004 and we're now in 2005," Chingoka says. "The world has moved on and the situation on the ground is an opportunity for an allinclusive team."

One positive outcome is ZC's commitment to restoring the defunct Zimbabwe Players' Association by paying for all its costs in the first year and 50% thereafter. Richard Bevan, chief executive of the Professional Cricketers' Association and director of operations at the Federation of International Cricketers' Associations, which has advised Zimbabwe's players on the new body, believes the dispute would never have escalated in the way it did if a well-run professional association had existed.

For ZC it was always Streak who mattered, the one world-class player who could make a genuine difference with bat and ball; the other rebels were optional. Moreover it saw him as someone whose profile mattered far more than anyone else. By bringing him back it felt it could pre-empt any punitive action the ICC might be inclined to take. Being bowled out for 54 inside 32 overs in the Cape Town Test did not help and, though the return of others like Carlisle and Wishart might, Olonga cautions against expecting too much. "A lot of people are thinking Zimbabwe's performance will shoot through the roof but it won't necessarily happen like that," he says. "Results will improve but it will take time."

But looking ahead can the rebels trust ZC to deliver on its promises? And can ZC trust the rebels not to down tools again? David Coltart, justice spokesman for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and a cricket fan, is worried. "If the players haven't got it in writing, that's problematic. This is not a cricket board that has demonstrated much good faith over the last year."

Looking to the long term he says that, unless the "brazenly political" figures of Bvute and Ebrahim are removed, the rebels "are walking a precarious path". One international administrator says Chingoka is already living on borrowed time. "He'll be gone in 12 months," he says. "When all this calms down Bvute will push him aside." Just when they thought it was safe to concentrate on cricket, Zimbabwe's players have something else to worry about.

Remembering that day in November at Heath Streak's farm it is hard to believe he is once again back in the Zimbabwe team.