But the Zimbabwe situation has flushed ostriches out of every nook and cranny of the international cricket cupboard.
Cricket SA, obviously feeling a bit defensive about criticism of its decision to send a team to Zimbabwe this week, issued a statement yesterday. Among other things, the statement said:
“Despite initial criticism from countries like Australia, England and New Zealand, after full debate and discussion, the Full Member countries of the International Cricket Council (ICC) unanimously agreed to retain Zimbabwe as a Full Member.
“The Full Member countries also agreed that it is not for the ICC to take up any moral or political stance on any issue in any of the Full Member countries.
It went on: “CSA is therefore committed to fulfilling its ICC obligations, and will only not do so if instructed by the South African government whether to play there or not.”
And so on and so on.
It’s that bit about full member countries agreeing that it is not for the ICC to take any moral or political stance on any issue in any of the full member countries that really gets me.
As far as I’m concerned it is the most monumental cop-out of all time in sport.
Or is it simply that? Is there some other agenda at play?
Within the ICC, there is a struggle for control, with India and its allies wanting to take power away from the original top guns — England and Australia. There is a feeling that India and its allies are more deserving to run the game than the traditional powers because they make more money than those countries do.
Then there is also a sense that there is a mood of defiance in the ICC’s so-called third world countries which stems from those bad old days of colonialism.
There are those — and most cricket-playing countries were colonised by England at one time or another — who are not prepared to be told what to do any more by those they see as their former masters.
This decision to throw out the obviously moral concerns voiced by England, Australia and New Zealand smacks of third world countries, who now control the ICC, giving their former colonialist masters the good old finger.
But no matter what is behind all of this, the Pontius Pilate approach adopted by the ICC — one of washing its hands of any involvement in things that are patently wrong in some countries affiliated to it — is morally indefensible.
When is cricket going to wake up and see the real picture? When will the ICC understand that sport, which is hopelessly politicised anyway, can be an instrument for change, and that sport can help to lift desperate people out of the gutter?
In saying that it is not for them to pass judgment on the internal affairs of any affiliates, the ICC is saying it does not care whether things are wrong or not.
The situation in Zimbabwe is one of wholesale violation of human rights against the whole country — blacks and whites.
For the ICC, or any of its members, to say that it is not for them to make political judgments amounts to the worst abrogation of responsibility imaginable.
And for ICC affiliates to say that they would undertake tours to Zimbabwe because the ICC had dictated that it will be so, is equally disgraceful. They are just hiding behind big brother ICC.
If cricket administrators had any conscience at all, they would be combining to isolate Zimbabwean sport completely — just as they did when sports boycotts were imposed on the all-white South African sportsmen and women everywhere.
And if anyone were to say to me: how can you penalise Zimbabwe’s sportsmen and women for what their government is doing? I say:
Offer those Zimbabwe sports men and women contracts and opportunities to come and ply their trades in other countries.
India boasts that it makes all the ICC’s money. Well, then, let’s see them spend it in the right way.
And as for that fine that can be imposed by the ICC on any affiliate refusing to tour another country — unless instructed by their governments…
Well that will go down in history as one of the most iniquitous rulings ever made in sport.
N Smit is sports editor- Businessday
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