Zimbabwe board defend right to Test status

Ozias Bvute, has defended Zimbabwe's right to retain their Test status in the face of calls from across the world for them to be stripped of it following their two-day humiliation in the first Test at Harare Sports Club.

Bvute, Zimbabwe Cricket's managing director, said that although the result had been "disappointing", the country's future status "should not be on the basis of a bad result."

"The basis of any form of improvement is exposure, so it would be totally wrong to exclude us from any form of competition," he continued. "We feel that through exposure we shall improve. Rome was not built in a day. We are, however, confident that the team will do better in the next Test and other assignments to come. The 11 that were selected to represent the country were the best Zimbabwe could field, and we still have faith in them."

While Bvute's comments are bullish in the face of such overwhelming criticism, even the firmly controlled domestic press inside Zimbabwe appear finally to have had enough. On Tuesday, Lawrence Moyo, the country's Cricket Writer of the Year for the last three years, wrote a stinging attack on the performance against New Zealand.

And in today's Zimbabwe Independent, Darlington Majonga delivered perhaps the most vociferous broadside yet against the way the game is being run. "Slaughtered they were, and the cricketers we thought were the best at Zimbabwe's disposal seemed to have connived to discomfit all those who literally went hoarse defending the country's Test status after a couple of forgettable outings that were deemed harmful to the integrity of premier cricket," he wrote. "Dubious footwork, atrocious shot selection, inconsistent bowling and poor fielding combined to skid Zimbabwe to an unimaginable nadir in their 13-year flirtation with elite cricket."

Those comments were at odds with Bvute's implication that the result was a one-off that could be dismissed as disappointing. There have been too many similar one-offs for that, and unless New Zealand are too bored to bother, there is no reason that the Bulawayo Test next week will be any different.

Itai Dzamara, a former cricket reporter, blamed the ZC board for the embarassment. "It is all a result of the leadership crisis that rocked the game last year," he said. "The architects of that madness are still up and about, in charge of the gentlemen's game, never mind the so-called return of the rebels. It's the other side of the same coin".

Perhaps the widespread apathy inside Zimbabwe to the game was more telling than any spin. "It's sad when spectator apathy hits the wonderful game of cricket," Majonga continued, "and it's tantamount to treachery to the millions who follow the game religiously when they are subjected to mismatches that mock their passion."

Although the ICC continues to maintain that the way to help Zimbabwe is to support rather than punish them, feedback to Cricinfo in response to an article calling on the ICC to step in was overwhelmingly of the opinion that enough is enough. In 2004, Ehsan Mani, the ICC's president, stressed the need for the ICC to protect the integrity of international cricket. It is that integrity which is now being widely questioned.

The last word goes to Majonga. "It's a lot that needs to be done to not only save Zimbabwe's Test status, but to ensure the country becomes successful on the international scene. And Peter Chingoka knows it as well. Otherwise the mess we witnessed this week is a serious indictment of the Zimbabwe Cricket leadership, though the 11 men who embarrassed us should do some serious soul-searching.

"If the Zimbabwe Cricket and the players themselves have any conscience, they should know that Zimbabweans and world cricket don't deserve this."