Streak urges England to stay away

Heath Streak, who was sacked as captain of Zimbabwe earlier this month, has urged England and all other Test-playing nations to boycott Zimbabwe until the current impasse over player selection is resolved. Streak's dismissal triggered off the dispute which culminated in 15 rebel players being fired by the Zimbabwe Cricket Union.

England are scheduled to tour Zimbabwe in October, and Streak expressed the fear that a decision to play there would been seen as approval of Robert Mugabe's regime. Talking to the BBC's Test Match Special programme, he said, "If England come, it would suggest they agree with what is going on. I don't think any country should be coming to play cricket in Zimbabwe until they have fixed the problem, whether it be England, Australia or Bangladesh."

The International Cricket Council is set to debate Zimbabwe's Test future in June, after the two-Test series against Australia - scheduled to start last Saturday - was cancelled. The team that took on Sri Lanka recently was barely club standard, and two crushing defeats reinforced the fear that such unequal contests were making a mockery of the game.

The rebel players have turned to the ICC to resolve the crisis, and it is currently making a legal assessment of whether it can intervene in what some, including Imran Khan, seen as a domestic dispute. As things stand though, it's unlikely that England's players will have to make that trip to southern Africa this autumn.