Zimbabwe..

[veer]

I was listening to a piece on Zimbabwe on BBC about how bad the situation is there.. and all of a sudden it hit me.. why Zimbabwe is not playing in this WC.. so I did little research and found out this.. ICC and BCCI should help this poor county every way possible.. its the people who are suffering .. ------------- Zimbabwe on the backfoot Siddhartha Mishra First Published : 07 Jun 2009 10:14:00 AM ISTLast Updated : 07 Jun 2009 11:23:43 AM IST Finding no way more direct than this to present the facts of a story camouflaged by the cricke*ting contests currently keep*i*ng our eyeballs split wide open, here go*es. India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, South Africa, Au*stralia, New Zealand, England, West Indies, Ir*eland, Netherla*nds, Scotland. The team ‘missing’ (‘deleted by the po*wers that be’ wo*uld be a more accurate desc*rip*t*ion) in action at World T20 2009 is the same team th*at shook and stirred World T20 2007 to life by sh*ocking Ricky Po*nting’s Invinc*ibles. Zimbabwe. There in England is the strange case of the mi**ss*i*ng team. Functionaries (mostly of the non-fu**nctional kind), cricketers (both past and present) and experts (self-anointed and otherwise) have all tried to crack the case and yet an explanation agr*e*eable to all has thus far proved elusive. At stake is the line-up of teams in future tournam*ents con*d*ucted under the umbrella of the Intern*ational Cr*icket Council (ICC). For the discerning follower of cricket, the line in the grass separ*ating the ‘wa*nted’ from the ‘unwanted’ in the line-up of teams at the ongoing World T20 Championship is a grey area and not the clear-cut white chalk line that of**ficialdom wants it to be seen as. Why is Zimbabwe, a cricketing nation with Full Member status, not out there, entertaining our 20/20 vision-endowed eyeballs with its brand of sl*am-bang cricket? Politics. Much as the question is thought-provoking, the answer, shorn of subtl*e*ty, is disappointingly clichéd. The tale behind the twist is simple enough. En*gland, host to the current stopover for cricket’s travelling circus, had made it clear that should Zimbabwe be included in the starting line-up for the tournament, its government would not be in a position to issue visas to that country’s cricketers as the big daddies of the British administration we*re not impressed with the political situation in Robert Mugabe land. Last year, at an ICC meeting prior to which the England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) had suspended bilateral ties with Zimbabwe on the instructions of the British government, va*rious national boards on England’s side of the fe*n*ce sought Zimbabwe’s expulsion from the league of Full Member countries. The stumbling block to this desired aim was th**at the Asian bloc of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh batted for Zimbabwe. With boards on either side of the divide refusing to relent, and a question mark emerging against the scheduled staging of World T20 2009, a compromise formula — masterminded by the BCCI, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (and everywhere else) — was arrived at: Zimbabwe would voluntarily withd*r*aw from the World T20 and, in return, would be al*lowed to continue as a Full Member nation. This ensured for the British government a hush-hush resolution to what could have been an ugly affair while Zimbabwe continued to receive funding from the ICC without a ball being bo*wled or an eyebrow raised. With Full Members getting big bucks in terms of funding compared to the peanuts paid by the ICC to Associate Members (Scotland, Ireland, Ke*nya) Ozias Bvute, Peter Chingoka and the other worthies who run cricket in Zimbabwe would be pleased with the arrangement. But what of concerns that extend beyond finan*c*ial gain? What of the fall and fall of Zimbabwean cricket? What of the international comm*unity’s responsibility to a team so deprived of exposure th*at it needs matches more than money to survive as a cricketing country? Admittedly, much of the blame lies with Zimb*abwe. Its cricketing structure is ridden by financial irregularities. The findings of independent audit*ors reveal that funds released for the development of Zimbabwean cricket have been diverted to the coffers of corrupt administrators. The irony is that Zimbabwe’s cricketers are being punished for a crime in which they are victims. Denied Test cric*k*et because of the self-exile imposed by board off*icials, Zimbabwe’s cricketers seek a lifeline in bi***lateral ODI series and multi-team events like the World T20. This lifeline is, unfortu*nately, being denied to them because of the political and moral sc*ience of various governments and the boardro*om politics of the ICC and national associations. In a perfect world, Zimbabwe would be part of the international cricket calendar. In a perfect world, governments would not bar apolitical sp*o*rts teams from playing in countries with which th*eir only differences are political in nature. In a perfect world, various cricket boards would put the interests of Zimbabwe’s cricketers above ever*ything else. In our imperfect world, one — and on*ly one — description fits whatever is happening: it’s not cricket

[Sachinism]

wtf, why are there stars all over the place, hard to read

[veer]

ahhh.. dont know what happened there.. here is the link.. http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=Zimbabwe+on+the+backfoot&artid=p4ZcbP5B4js=&SectionID=Aw|qo8JJkxA=&MainSectionID=Aw|qo8JJkxA=&SectionName=||WM0BI9WGM=&SEO=