The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : ZCU forced to select second string team again

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Apr 25, 2004

Sport

Sport - Cricket

ZCU forced to select second string team again

HARARE, APRIL 24. A continued boycott by 15 white Zimbabwe professional cricketers has forced the national selectors here to choose a team once more from the country's second string to meet Sri Lanka in the third of five internationals at Harare Sports Club here tomorrow.

In refusing to show up for practice today as part of a new deal proposed by the Zimbabwe Cricket Union (ZCU), the dissident players underlined their rejection of a plan which would mean mediation by an independent body and of new procedures to resolve union and player differences. Details of this plan are being withheld by the ZCU, but they are known to entail the involvement of an independent arbitrator and a one-on-one method of resolving future issues between the union and professional players.

It took former captain Heath Streak and senior batsman Grant Flower just a few minutes yesterday to turn down the idea of a mediation mechanism which the ZCU hoped would move negotiations forward quickly. Flower said later that the other 13 had also expressed disapproval.

As the stalemate continued into a fourth week since their insistence on reinstatement of Streak as captain -- which ZCU chairman Peter Chingoka has said is ``no longer for discussion'' -- there seems to be no further sign of a breakthrough.

Many of the players are still scattered around the country on holiday - at Nyanga mountain resort, Victoria Falls and Lake Kariba.

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