cricket

Ever worried about all these new anti-terrorist laws? Ever worried that their wide-ranging discretionary powers would be used for entirely non-terrorism related reasons? Well, it happened in Australia this week.

The Australian cricket team was threatened with action under the Australian Passports Act 2005 if they went ahead with this September's planned tour of Zimbabwe.

There seems to be almost universal support in this country for the abandonment of Australia's ODI cricket tour of Zimbabwe pencilled in for September. The pollies all agree, the commentariat seem to all agree, the Roman Catholic Church agrees, the only dissenting voices I have seen are from the Zimbabwean Ambassador to Australia (well he would, wouldn't he?) and former Test batsman Vusi Sibanda, who now lives in Sydney.

Australia is scheduled to play three one-day internationals in Zimbabwe in September. They should not go. Furthermore, they should not pay the $US 2 million break fee for not going.

It doesn't take rocket science to understand why. Playing international cricket in a country which has been governed into an absolutely ruinous state would be a sign of ceremonial largesse of the most unspeakable obscenity. Inflation is running at more than 2000 per cent per annum, 38 per cent of the population are malnourished (source: World Food Programme), 85 per cent are unemployed, about a quarter have HIV/AIDS, and President Robert Mugabe rules dictatorially, violently suppressing opposition and silencing contrary opinion in the media.

At the precise moment Malcolm Speed, the ICC chief executive, was saying sorry for the bizarre ending of the World Cup final the ICC hoarding behind him came unstuck from the wall, and almost hit his head.

- Andrew Miller, CricInfo, 29.4.07