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Tatenda Taibu

IT never rains but pours, they say, and Zimbabweans know all about that at the moment.

After a desperate drought in the 2015/16 rainy season, the heavens opened up in November last year and whoever is in charge up there appears to have forgotten to close the latch again. For nearly three months, rain has fallen in huge quantities, to the extent that inner-city dams in Harare are threatening to burst.

The idiom, of course, can also be used to explain what’s happening in Zimbabwe cricket. After enjoying a spell of good news last year when Tatenda Taibu agreed to become involved in the running of the game, Heath Streak signed on as the new head coach and an expanded domestic cricket season was promised, this summer the floods have come rolling in.

The Logan Cup, Zimbabwe’s first-class competition, has been postponed three times, possibly four, depending on who is counting. Zimbabwe’s A side have just lost a one-day series 4-1 to Afghanistan A in Harare. And over the past few months, Cricbuzz understands the ICC has had to pay various third parties and contractors directly on Zimbabwe Cricket’s behalf, on account of ZC’s dire financial situation. While this is not unheard of — the ICC has helped other members in a similar fashion before — and the money is coming from funds that are ultimately owed to ZC, it does offer an insight into how bad things have become.

Then, over the weekend, the ICC announced that its members had agreed in principle to make a raft of changes to its governance as well as the structure of international cricket. As a full member that had huge debts and no fixtures, Zimbabwe stood to gain the most from any change to those structures, particularly on the Test front. Since returning to Test cricket in August 2011, Zimbabwe have only played 18 matches — with just four of them taking place in the last two years. The Catch-22 that ZC has faced is that nobody wants to invite Zimbabwe for a Test, and every time they host one, it only adds to their debt burden.

With that in mind, a two-tier system, or better yet a conference one, which guaranteed fixtures with guaranteed income, looked an attractive proposition.

Yet bizarrely, ZC showed opposition to the first plan. When a four-man travelling party from Cricket South Africa (CSA) met with ZC in late January, CSA made the point that ZC, more than anyone, should be voting for such proposals.

But those proposals are no longer on the table. Last week, the rest of the ICC chief executives council all but signed off a new structure in which Zimbabwe had fallen through the floor, and found themselves in the basement with Ireland and Afghanistan. In terms of benefit, the new deal did at least stress that those three teams would be guaranteed a “consistent and confirmed schedule of Test matches against all other teams”, which is more than Zimbabwe have right now.

But any hope that they might be part of a new Test competition — or even that improved performances could lead to some sort of promotion — appear to be receding. Nobody could argue that Zimbabwe deserve any more, given their performance both on the field and in administration. But it is a depressing thought that a life in the basement feeding off scraps from the inhabitants upstairs is as good as it will get.

Of course, any genuine revival in Zimbabwe relies less on fixtures than it does on money and good governance. As long as ZC remain deep in debt, all of their income will continue to be eaten up by interest. Yet in the past ZC’s management and board have not shown a desire to help themselves — twice they have taken issue with the terms attached to potential ICC bailouts, leading the deals to break down.

Now they appear uncertain about what position to take on the proposal for a new ICC constitution, which includes a new distribution model of ICC funds.

Even with a new Test fund coming into place, Zimbabwe’s share of funds from the ICC fell when the Big Three clinched power three years ago, but the new model would correct that. Intriguingly, when the new constitution was put to a vote, Zimbabwe abstained.

“It’s typical Zimbabwean politics I would say. They’re waiting to see how the wind blows with India,” a source, who was in Dubai for the ICC meetings, told Cricbuzz.

As India has risen to a position of great power over the past 15 years, and Zimbabwe has disintegrated, the relationship between the two boards has always been close — if the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) raised its hand at an ICC meeting, ZC’s followed immediately. The recent upheaval at the BCCI has left ZC without its only real ally.

With the BCCI showing its opposition to the ICC proposals, and later promising that they would have the votes to torpedo them at the next meeting, the promise of a few more India tours would likely buy them Zimbabwe’s vote once more. But a few second-rate India tours have not saved Zimbabwe in recent years, and it would not save them from their situation going forward.

If there is some good news, it is that there appears to be an effort to tidy up ZC’s internal affairs. After last year’s audit fiasco, which saw ZC take nearly 10 months to produce its financials for the 2015 year, the organisation has appointed a new auditing firm.

A source put the Logan Cup delays this year down to teething problems with the new financial processes that are being put in place, and said there was a drive for more accountability — partly because of the audit issue, and partly because of the ICC’s drip-feed of money, for which ZC must provide invoices on everything.

The future of Zimbabwe cricket has been balancing on a knife-edge for the last two years. The next few months, with key events both internally and at the ICC, could decide its fate. — Cricbuzz