Date:31/12/2002 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2002/12/31/stories/2002123102241200.htm

International

Blair for England boycott of Zimbabwe

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON DEC. 30. The row over the England cricket tour of Zimbabwe for the World Cup matches has deepened after the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, made clear that while his Government was opposed to the tour in view of the ``deteriorating political and humanitarian situation'' in that country, it had no legal powers to stop it. He said it was for the cricket board, an independent body, to take a decision.

But the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and the England captain, Nasser Hussain, insisted that it was a political decision and if the Government did not want the tour to go ahead, it should make a formal statement.

``If that's what the Prime Minister or any other politician thinks, I would like them to help us make the decision or even make the decision themselves,'' Mr. Hussain told a TV channel today amid indications that while the tour would go ahead it might be left to individual players to decide whether they want to go.

The ECB chairman, David Morgan, indicated that the Board wanted to discuss the issue with Ministers and said he was looking forward to advice from the Government. The Board's chief executive, Tim Lamb, who was in Australia, was quoted as saying that nobody from the Government had contacted them directly ``to say they don't want us to go to Zimbabwe''.

The Government maintained that it had made its views known to the Government but it had no powers to order the Board or the team. ``We cannot order the ECB not to go to Zimbabwe but we have asked them not to go. Our position is clear — given the abuse of human rights and the dire circumstances of the people of Zimbabwe, it would be wrong to play a game of cricket there,'' the Foreign Office Minister, Mike O'Brien, said, echoing the Prime Minister and other Ministers.

The ECB let it be known that it was going ahead with the tour but would not force players to go to Zimbabwe if they did not wish to. Ironically, calls for a boycott have come from cricketers such as Mike Gatting and Graham Gooch who played in apartheid South Africa in defiance of a government ban.

England is to play its first match in Harare on February 13 and if it does not it would lose World Cup points under the rules. There is also a hefty financial loss involved in terms of advertising and sponsorships.