Zimbabwe board seeks peace with rebels

Zimbabwe Cricket has announced that it is setting up an independent committee to look into the possibility of the players who were at the centre of last year's strike returning to the fold.

Some of the rebels - Gavin Ewing and Barney Rogers for example - have already resumed playing, but others, led by Heath Streak, remain on the outside.

ZC issued a statement saying that Addington Chinake, a legal advisor, would chair the committee and he will be joined by Jackie du Preez, the former Rhodesia and South Africa allrounder, and George Makings, a labour consultant.

The stumbling block to a settlement would appear to the recent election of Ozias Bvute as ZC managing director, and Max Ebrahim's role as chairman of selectors. Both men are deeply distrusted and were at the centre of many of the rebels' grievances.

It was an unhappy coincidence that ZC announced the forming of the committee at the same time the national side was slipping to defeat in Bangladesh.