West Indies board cancels A-team tour

WICB chief Bruce Aanensen: 'We have to be guided by the wishes of the heads of government' © The Nation

A dismal day for Zimbabwe cricket was capped by confirmation from the West Indies that the proposed A-team tour had been cancelled. The news comes within hours of a damning ICC report into Zimbabwe cricket being leaked by the BBC.

Although the West Indies Cricket Board told Cricinfo yesterday that no decision had been made, it now emerges that Bruce Aanensen, the WICB chief executive, had already written to the Zimbabwe board to notify them that the tour was off.

"I regret to advise that in spite of our best efforts and your unstinting support, we are now advised by the CARICOM Secretariat that after careful consideration of a wide range of views they regretfully have to change their position and advise the WICB that the tour should not take place," he said. "You will appreciate that we have to be guided by the wishes of the heads of government. Our apologies to Zimbabwe Cricket for any inconvenience caused by this late decision."

Lovemore Banda, the ZC media manager, told The Herald that the decision was "regrettable", adding that the "training squad will remain in camp as we have a Zimbabwe A tour to South Africa at the end of July. We will also continue talking to other boards about A tours as part of our on-going programme to expose our young side to top-level three or four-day cricket."

Although the WICB statement indicated that CARICOM had changed its position, Cricinfo revealed last week that a senior official said it had never given the board the all clear.

Furthermore, the WICB had been unable to raise a side after WIPA, the players' association, advised its members that there were serious security issues surrounding the tour. The WICB had been trying to find players but had struggled to do so, and had even been unable to name a team captain.

Despite repeated assurances that a squad was about to be named, with West Indies set to land in Harare on July 1 and play the first four-day match on July 4, it became increasingly obvious that the trip was doomed.

Until now, the only sides refusing to tour Zimbabwe on safety or moral grounds have been white, and this has been seized on by the authorities as evidence of what government sources have variously described as "racism" and "colonialism". But that West Indies are now unwilling to tour raises serious concerns about the future of the country as a destination for tours of any kind.