Cricket: Zimbabwe tour back on after media ban lifted

JOHANNESBURG - England's five-match cricket tour of Zimbabwe will go ahead after a ban on 13 British journalists was rescinded.

England team spokesman Andrew Walpole said after a players' meeting on Thursday afternoon: "I can confirm the team will fly to Harare at 10.30 am (22.30pm NZT) tomorrow."

A media conference was scheduled for 7.00am Friday NZT.

England were originally due to fly on Wednesday but were told by the ECB to remain in South Africa. Walpole said Friday's opening one-day match would be rescheduled.

"The ECB is committed to playing a five-match series," he said. "We will sort out the dates later."

England and Wales Cricket Board chairman David Morgan said earlier he had been informed at a meeting in Zimbabwe with cricket officials on Thursday that the bans had been lifted.

"The whole incident is regrettable but it has been resolved," he said.

Major Anyway Mutambudzi, a senior official at the department of information and publicity, told Reuters the 13 barred reporters had been part of a backlog of applications which had now been cleared.

"The confusion came initially from the fact that people had applied as a group rather than as individuals as is required by our law. We have cleared everyone," he said.

Earlier, a spokesman for President Robert Mugabe said the reporters had been banned because they worked for organisations hostile to the Zimbabwe leader.

"Bona fide media organisations in the UK have been cleared, but those that are political have not. This is a game of cricket, not politics," George Charamba said.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) welcomed the Zimbabwe government's change of heart.

"The non-accreditation of these cricket journalists by the Zimbabwe government was a very serious issue and the ICC welcomes the reversal of this original decision," said president Ehsan Mani.

Morgan and the ECB's deputy chairman Mike Soper met the chairman of Zimbabwe Cricket Peter Chingoka on Thursday morning to try to resolve the crisis.

Under the International Cricket Council's Future Tours Programme, tours can only be cancelled on the advice of a government or because of overriding security and safety worries.

Teams pulling out for any other reason risk a US$2 million ($2.84 million) fine and suspension from the international game.

Top strike bowler Steve Harmison boycotted the tour before the squad was announced and several players, including captain Michael Vaughan, aired reservations before the latest crisis.

Relations between Zimbabwe and its former colonial ruler Britain have hit rock bottom since Mugabe launched a campaign of chaotic and often violent seizures of land from white farmers, many of whom held dual British citizenship.

Britain, accusing Mugabe of rigging his 2002 re-election, has spearheaded international sanctions against Mugabe, who in return says London has masterminded a campaign of economic sabotage and negative media coverage as the once prosperous Zimbabwean economy faces its worst crisis since independence.

- REUTERS