The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Zimbabwe wants Speed to quit

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Saturday, May 06, 2006

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Zimbabwe wants Speed to quit

HARARE: Zimbabwe players and officials are demanding that the chief executive of the International Cricket Council resign because he failed to address the sporting crisis in the country.

The chairmen of all seven provinces, players' representatives, former Zimbabwe Cricket directors, and other `stakeholders' accuse Malcolm Speed of failing in his duty by refusing to intervene.

In a letter to Speed, they said that the new management of Zimbabwe Cricket, headed by chairman Peter Chingoka and managing director Ozias Bvute, should not be recognised by the ICC.

"They remain in their positions only because the government arbitrarily appointed a temporary committee, most of whom know nothing about cricket," said former international bowler Richie Kaschula, who was recently sacked as full-time selector. "The ICC declined to intervene, which should have been its duty," he added.

The letter said that ICC's inaction over the two-year-old crisis was one of the reasons why so many quality players were leaving Zimbabwe.

It added that Speed was wrong to allow Chingoka to investigate himself and Bvute following widespread allegations of corruption, and had failed to ensure that he received the requested full audit of Zimbabwe Cricket's financial affairs. Speed was also accused of doing nothing to enforce his instructions to Zimbabwe to solve player strikes.

Copies have been sent to every Test-playing country seeking support.

In October last year, the provincial chairmen, several directors, clubs and players combined to confront Chingoka and Bvute, demanding their resignation and dismissal respectively, alluding in a long list of "queries" to allegedly dubious financial dealings.

Chingoka and Bvute were arrested by Harare police following Reserve Bank investigations but released on the instruction of Zimbabwe's attorney general. Repeated requests to the ICC to intervene have been rejected, with the ICC claiming that it is purely an internal matter. — AP

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