Robertson calls for ICC fact-finding mission

Charlie Robertson, one of Zimbabwe's senior administrators and the head of the group of provincial chairman, has called on the ICC to send in a group of neutral observers to see for themselves what he described as "the complete joke" that cricket has become in Zimbabwe.

Robertson has made several approaches to the ICC on behalf of stakeholders opposed to the board run by Peter Chingoka, but to date all have been rebuffed.

"We are amazed that no representative of the ICC has been sent here on a fact-finding mission, with a mandate to meet with the cricket stakeholders, both players and administrators," he told Cricinfo. "The ICC seems hell-bent on dealing only with the current ZC administration - which has in effect been put in place by the government's Sports and Recreational ministry - to the exclusion of all other stakeholders. The current constitution is null and void in terms of recent developments under the guise of this ministry.

"Do we now bypass the ICC? What recourse do we have? Perhaps we need to get some real cricketers here ...Barry Richards, Ian Botham, Michael Holding and Sunil Gavaskar to name a few ... on a fact finding mission to report back to the whole of the cricket fraternity, and the ICC.

"Surely the ICC is answerable to the stakeholders and not a self-imposed hierarchy. We need to muster support from the other Test-playing nations to lobby the ICC and galvanise it into making a principled stand, without political considerations, before all our players and administrators are forever lost to the game here."

"The ICC's procedures mean we deal with one administration for each of our members, hence in this case we are dealing with ZC as they look to resolve ongoing organisational and operational issues," an ICC spokesman explained. "This position is consistent with our processes in dealing with all our members. Another point of consistency is that we do not seek to become involved in the running of the game within individual members unless invited to do so by that member. We have made offers to go to Zimbabwe in the past, the last of them in January when Ehsan Mani [ the ICC president] wrote to Chingoka, but our policy has always been to let members run their own affairs."

Robertson countered that while the ICC continued to refuse to acknowledge the seriousness of the situation and accepted what it was being told by Zimbabwe Cricket, the game was dying.

"Our cricket is a complete joke and the standards are shocking," he shrugged. "The bottom line is we do not have anything that resembles first-class cricket. In the Mashonaland Country Districts, all 24 grounds that we have been using and maintaining are totally derelict, including Harare South, a first-class venue where we have hosted England, South Africa, West Indies and New Zealand."

And unsurprisingly, Robertson, who has publicly rowed with board chairman Peter Chingoka, slammed Zimbabwe Cricket's leadership and claimed that morale within the board was "at an all time low". He added: "Most people with cricketing knowledge have either resigned or been pushed out."