Banned, unbanned: when sports hacks get caught in the crossfire

Cricket writers sent to cover England's tour of Zimbabwe knew they weren't just dealing with matters on the pitch. But little did they expect to find themselves at the centre of the storm

It was us wot won it. Or that is how the media chose to present the drama over England's on-off-on cricket tour of Zimbabwe.

After months of anguished breast-beating, President Robert Mugabe's ban on the entry of 13 British journalists at last produced a decisive and apparently principled reaction - the players said no and the beleaguered chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), David Morgan, persuaded the Zimbabwe government to do something it had never been known to do before: to change its mind in the direction of press freedom. As one headline put it, "Player power forces U-turn".

Except, of course, that it wasn't a bit like that. Press freedom had nothing to with the England players' reaction. Had that been the case, they would have reacted earlier to Mugabe's closure of newspapers and jailing of editors. No, their concern was that the media would not be reporting them - and the effect this would have on the economics of the tour. To quote captain Michael Vaughan: "Through giving the game exposure, and with TV rights, they bring the game 60 per cent of its income."

When Richard Bevan, chief executive of the Professional Cricketers' Association, and John Carr, cricket operations director of the ECB, went before the cameras in Thursday's dramatic press conference in Johannesburg, they stressed their serious concerns over safety and security - the safety and security of the England players and officials, that is, not the safety and security of the terrorised people of Zimbabwe.

As for Morgan, why did he seek to overturn the ban? Here was a long-awaited opportunity to cancel the tour without any blame. The players, who never wanted to go, saw that immediately, but their benighted officials blundered on and let Mugabe off the hook.

Morgan didn't do anything as heroic as fight or even threaten the Zimbabwe authorities: he simply pleaded with them, as he had earlier pleaded with the players, to let the tour continue because of the feared (or imagined) financial penalties the English game might otherwise incur.

Money, not principle, was at the root of it all - at least as far as the ECB was concerned. For Mugabe, there was no serious loss of face: he secured the international recognition he sought, and in a way that made him look almost reasonable. He also exposed the England cricket management as the opportunist pragmatists they are ("buffoons and charlatans" was The Guardian's description), rather than the moral champions that the media made them out to be.

I should perhaps declare an interest, having been banned from Zimbabwe myself for reporting on Mugabe's atrocities in Matabeleland. That was 20 years ago now, so nobody can argue that there hasn't been time for the whole world, let alone the narrow world of cricket, to think through a civilised and rational way of dealing with this monstrous regime.

The ECB was, in fact, offered a civilised and rational response earlier this year in the eloquent paper prepared by Des Wilson, one of its own committee chairmen. Its publication brought the most positive press reaction the cricket authorities have ever received. So the ECB, in its infinite wisdom, promptly dumped it without a debate.

As it happens, when I was consulted on a draft copy of this paper, I suggested the inclusion of a clause about media access and making this a sine qua non of any tour. The media and the ECB described Mugabe's ban on journalists last week as a "bombshell". It was nothing of the sort. It was entirely predictable. He bans pretty well all foreign journalists - and what tyrant wouldn't, when he is starving and murdering his people and stealing their land?

Cricket is sometimes seen as a last hurrah for British colonialism. In fact, it has become the Commonwealth game, managed no longer from Lord's by the MCC but by the multiracial countries involved. Some see the recent emphasis on money, rather than the traditional values of the game, as a consequence of this change.

The truth is that it was probably inevitable anyway, given the global power of television money. But the International Cricket Council has aggravated the problem in two ways: by choosing not to care about moral or political issues (even though Zimbabwe has been banished from the Commonwealth) and then forcing that attitude on countries who don't agree by threatening severe sanctions against them.

The ICC director, Malcolm Speed, an Australian, condemned the Zimbabwean regime after a recent visit - not for blatant racial discrimination in their selection policy or for the starvation and denial of human rights in the country at large - but for refusing to meet him.

Morgan, having at first appeared to accept Wilson's case against the tour, then panicked at the threat of a huge fine by the ICC or the suspension of England from Test cricket. The ECB looked supine in the face of these threats, yet it is doubtful if they have any real force in international law. The ECB should have called the ICC's bluff by at least testing the legal arguments.

With a winter tour of South Africa already sold out and a mouth-watering Ashes series here next summer, does anyone seriously believe England would be banned from Test cricket - or that South Africa and Australia would support such a self-destructive move?

This is now a big media story, but where was the media when it was building up? The press, with a few honourable exceptions, have failed to expose the issues, challenge assumptions, ask the right questions and call the principals to account.

Sport eats up mountains of newsprint but the politics of sport, which is increasingly important, only attracts attention when the gloves are off. Then we get dramatic confrontational headlines, but little original analysis. In all this one feels sorry for the players, many of whom find themselves out of their moral and intellectual depth and used, as the cliché has it, as pawns in a political game. They have been browbeaten into going on a tour of no sporting value whatever. They have done so in the genuine but mistaken belief that they were acting in the best interests of English cricket.

The authorities - chiefly the ICC and the ECB, but also the Foreign Office (who can ever forget Jack Straw's sinister handshake with Mugabe?) - have bowled them a googly. And now that they are official guests of the president of the Zimbabwe Cricket Union, one R G Mugabe, that may not be the last one they have to face.

Donald Trelford was editor of The Observer, 1975-93, then professor of journalism at the University of Sheffield. He has written several books on cricket

THE PERILS OF THE SPORTS BEAT: STICKY MOMENTS RECALLED

Angus Fraser

Cricket Correspondent of 'The Independent' and ex-England Test player who is covering the on-off-on tour of Zimbabwe

The whole thing's been pretty fraught. During the warm-up in Namibia things seemed to be going quite smoothly, but then we saw the panic on the face of the ECB media man. I was one of only four press people who weren't banned. That made me feel even more vulnerable. I was trying to work out why I'd been let in and others hadn't. It's not as if The Independent hasn't been highly critical of the Mugabe regime. It didn't help when I heard a Zimbabwe official say that the players would be OK but that the press might have to watch out. There's been a lot of waiting around in hotels. But it's brought the press and the England set-up closer together.

Matthew Engel

Sports columnist on the 'Financial Times' who was cricket correspondent of 'The Guardian' when England toured the West Indies in 1985-86

Tours in those days always seemed to involve some sort of political kerfuffle. The problem on this one was the inclusion in the England team of three players who had just finished serving bans for going on a rebel tour of South Africa. The tour only went ahead after a last-minute deal. I arrived before the team. The only other journalist with me was Geoff Boycott, working for The Mail on Sunday. Some official must have decided that although the team was cleared to enter the country, the press was not. Boycs and I were carted off to the Holiday Inn in Port-of-Spain and put under house arrest. As 24 hours in hell goes, it was fairly luxurious, and Boycs and I bonded over it.

Norman Fox

Ex-football correspondent of 'The Times' and 'The IoS' who was at the 1972 Munich Olympics for 'The Times' when 11 Israeli athletes were murdered

I was on my way to the athletes' village and heard the gunshots. A press conference was held about an hour later, but there was a lot of confusion. I was a sub-editor on The Times sports desk, but had been sent to the Games to cover the swimming. We only had one other staff writer there, plus two or three freelancers. The nearest news man was in Italy. So the sports guys had to cover the story. It was a challenge, but we did it. I remember after the Games how patronising the editor [William Rees-Mogg] was. He called us in to thank us, and said he didn't expect sports writers to have been able to cope.

Alan Hubbard

Sportswriter for 'The Independent on Sunday' who covered the Muhammad Ali vs George Foreman world title fight in Zaire in 1974

It wasn't a case of not being allowed in but of not being allowed out. Foreman got cut in training, and the fight was postponed for six weeks. The press got ready to go home, but President Mobutu was terrified we might not come back - nor Ali and Foreman. He feared the fight was off. We pleaded for three days. Finally we flew home - and then Mobutu paid for us to fly out again