Zimbabwe accused of duplicity over Kenya tour

Confusion surrounds the announcement that Zimbabwe will not be able to host Kenya for three ODIs in December, despite bullish comments from Zimbabwe cricket officials last week that the series looked likely.

The official reason given was that Zimbabwe have no time between now and January 4, when they head to Bangladesh. However, they have no cricket scheduled for the next month and have only managed to play a derisory 12 ODI matches in the whole of 2008.

Cricinfo has now learned that ZC was never considering hosting the series despite comments to the contrary from its media manager at the weekend that a memorandum of understanding was being drafted.

Despite attempts by Cricket Kenya to arrange the trip, at the weekend they were presented out of the blue with an offer for Zimbabwe to visit, giving them less than a fortnight to arrange a mass of things such as venues, officials and television coverage.

Logistically, that was never a realistic option, and a CK official told Cricinfo the board would have loved to host the series had it been given adequate notice. As it was, December is a busy time for Kenyan tourism and many hotels are already fully booked, and players and officials have made alternative arrangements.

That Kenya were not invited to Zimbabwe helped their board out of a potentially difficult decision. With water supplies cut off in Harare as well as the city being in the middle of a cholera outbreak and a state of emergency being declared, it would have been a tough call for CK.

"What is shows, yet again, is that the story peddled by the [Zimbabwe] board and the reality of what goes on behind the scenes are two quite different things," a local reporter told Cricinfo. "The deal put to the Kenyans was done so the board could say it had tried, but it knew the proposal left the Kenyans with no alternative but to decline it."