The Board of Directors of the Zimbabwe Cricket Union has agreedthat for transparency the findings by the Disciplinary Board ofInquiry be made public and accordingly the full report on theabove matter is now attached
ZCU15-Nov-2001The Board of Directors of the Zimbabwe Cricket Union has agreedthat for transparency the findings by the Disciplinary Board ofInquiry be made public and accordingly the full report on theabove matter is now attached.DISCIPLINARY BOARD INQUIRY – ALISTAIR CAMPBELL : COMMENTS IN THE LONDON DAILY TELEGRAPH CONCERNING RACISM IN CRICKETThe future of Zimbabwean Cricket depends on the integration ofblack players into the National Team. Apart from achieving theobvious benefit of having the cricket team properly reflectingthe racial diversity of Zimbabwe, the simple truth is that thepool of white players is far too small to sustain aninternationally competitive side. The selling of the game toblack Zimbabweans and creating and nurturing an increasing flowof black players through all levels into the National team, hasto be achieved if the game we love is not to wither and die inZimbabwe. The process of racial integration of the game ofcricket should have achieved much more given the 21 years ofZimbabwe’s life – it needs to be accelerated if the game is tosurvive.A balance, however, needs to be drawn. Success of the Nationalteam on the field is essential to spreading and selling the gameand providing the financial base to sustain and increasedevelopment and coaching programmes. If players are pushed ontothe field because they are black and not because they meritselection the process will be self-defeating. How then is thebalance to be achieved of increasing black representation in theNational cricket team while maintaining and improving performanceon the field? The answer is as with any human endeavour – by theexercise of commonsense, co-operation, understanding and lookingfor answers instead of problems.The ZCU’s implementation task force seeks the answer by settinggoals for racial integration and not quotas. Cynics always seemto look for problems instead of answers and are quick to saygoals really means quotas. That is by no means necessarily so. Anobjective look at the selection of the Zimbabwean team over thepast 6 months shows that goals means goals and not quotas. Thenumber of black players selected for the last 10 or so 1-dayinternationals, for example, has consistently been below the goalset – a situation which would not pertain if goals were quotas. Agoal which we would recommend achieving is to provide a quota ofone player representative to sit on the implementation task forcecommittee – that should help enhance communication andunderstanding between players and officials.Senior players in the National side need to understand andrealise the aims and goals of integration. They need to lendtheir experience, maturity and ability to making the programmework. The creation of harmony, team spirit and a necessarypositive attitude are vital components of success. That can onlybe achieved, and maintained, by the senior players. Negativity byeven a single senior player can destroy in days what has takenyears to build. Senior players need to realise that while theymay have made Zimbabwe cricket what it is, Zimbabwe cricket hasalso made them what they are. Very few of them would have had theopportunity to play test cricket for any other Nation and theyshould see it as their duty to actively help create anintegrated, growing and developing National cricket team – astheir legacy to Zimbabwe cricket when their careers come to anend.Those who misinterpret goals and quotas also, to our minds, tendto misunderstand merit. The truth of the matter, we believe, andwe have followed cricket in Zimbabwe and across the world forclose on 40 years, is that only two Zimbabwean players currentlycan claim to be selected truly on merit – with merit meaning aconsistency of performance meeting the minimum standard expectedfor a test class of cricketer. Those players, to our minds, areAndy Flower – who is in a class of his own -and Heath Streak. Athird player, though just at the start of his career, has made abeginning which shows the potential to scale the same heights asAndy Flower. That is Hamilton Masakadza. But the three tests this18 year old has played, is far too soon to make a proper judgmenton merit.Other current Zimbabwean cricketers have reached the plateau ofconsistent performance at a level to merit automatic selection -but have sadly fallen away. Here we think of Grant Flower and GuyWhittal. Hopefully they will regain that plateau by pushing theirtest batting averages above the unacceptable minimum of 30 aroundwhich they now hover. The erratic and injury prone Paul Strangalso falls into the category of a player who has in the pastmerited automatic selection. Henry Olonga is another such player.Stuart Carlisle is, in our view, approaching the plateau ofautomatically warranting selection on merit – but he is not yetthere and needs to make more scores of substance. With all theother players there is real potential, occasional performance atthe level required, but a frustrating lack of anythingapproaching the consistency necessary for automatic selection onmerit.Players whose claim to merit selection is that although they areperforming badly and without consistency they are the bestavailable – should not be surprised if selectors give other upand coming players the chance to test their mettle at the highestlevel. If those up and coming young players include as many blackas white players, that is only commonsense given a diminishingpool of white players, an increasing pool of black players andthe needs of the future. But once again there needs to be abalance. Young players, be they black or white, need to benurtured and not thrown into the unforgiving cauldron ofinternational cricket too soon – as that can result in a careerof promise being stillborn.What then of Alistair Campbell in this mix? He is an enigma. Hehas the natural talent to be a batsman of world class. At hisbest he stirs memories of David Gower, and at his very best thereare even echoes of Graeme Pollock. But he lacks the necessarydiscipline and concentration. His test batting average of 26,93after 50 tests would see him long since dropped from almost everyother team in the world. We emphasise that by stating that anaverage of 40 is regarded as the bench mark for a frontline testbatsman of world class. An average of 35 is regarded as justacceptable. But once that average slips below 33 to 30 it becomesunacceptably low. Alistair Campbell’s average of 26.93 is waybelow the acceptable minimum for a frontline test batsman. Hecannot seriously regard that performance level as warrantingautomatic selection on merit. It saddens us to say that becauseAlistair Campbell is one of the few batsman in Zimbabwe with thenatural talent to be a world class test batsman. He needs to addapplication, discipline and concentration to that talent and toeliminate rashness to reach his potential. We, like everyZimbabwean cricket lover, hope that he will achieve that in thelatter part of his career. And it has been encouraging to notethat in the last year his performances at test level haveimproved. We should, perhaps, add that as a one-day batsman,Campbell’s record is much better. But his average of 31.14 for atop order batsman in one-day cricket can only be regarded asacceptable as opposed to world class.Regrettably the rashness and lack of discipline which punctuatesCampbell’s batting seems also to affect his comments to thepress.To blame Zimbabwe’s poor recent performances on a perceived quotasystem for black players is, in our view, not correct. Zimbabwehas done amazingly well given its very small pool of players tobe playing test cricket at all – let alone often beingcompetitive against nations with massively greater playingresources. A sense of reality needs to accompany assessments ofZimbabwe’s performance on the international cricketing stage.There will always be peaks and troughs, but in general, until theplaying base is broadened, Zimbabwe will always struggle tocompete. To an outsider the major difficulty in recent times hasbeen the failure of senior players (and here we include Olonga)apart from Andy Flower and Heath Streak to perform consistentlyat an acceptable level – and indeed to have retrogressed in termsof level of performance. Hopefully that will change.It is the duty of the senior players to mould team spirit andpull the team together, not to become a divisive force. They maynot always like selectors decisions but that is a factor commonto all players, all teams and all spectators across the world.They need to understand the aims and objectives of the selectorsand the need to maintain the best possible team on merit, whilealso enhancing and ensuring the survival of Zimbabwe cricket byracial integration. Selectors and officials for their part mustmake sure that they properly understand the players and theirconcerns and keep open lines of communication. We don’t pretendthat the necessary balance is an easy one to draw -but it can beachieved by reasonable men working together.We now turn to the specific comments made to the London DailyTelegraph by Alistair Campbell. Comments like those referring to”the race thing having spilt onto the field” and “the team beingtorn apart”, are completely unhelpful and counter-productive.They create disharmony and conflict where sensible, rationaldiscussion, understanding and agreement are necessary. They putinto the glare of media publicity, matters which can and shouldbe resolved by discussion in private between players andofficials.In fairness to Alistair Campbell he realises that. In a letter toMr Chingoka, the President of the ZCU, on 17 October, heapologises “unreservedly for having spoken to the Press aboutthese issues and affording them the opportunity of publishing thearticles in question.” He adds that it was exceptionally naive todo so, “knowing the subject at hand is so sensitive”. He addsthat “I must emphasise that I did not make any comments about theperformance of black players, nor did I say that the inclusion ofplayers of colour was adversely affecting team performance”. Heconcludes by again expressing his sincere apologies for any harmcaused to the ZCU and the game of cricket in Zimbabwe. AlistairCampbell has also assured the President of the ZCU and ourselvesthat he is not racist and believes in the racial integration ofZimbabwean cricket. We accept his assurances.We hope that these proceedings have focused Alistair Campbell’smind. We hope that he realises his shortcomings and worksdiligently to correct them. We hope that he uses the opportunitywe propose to give him to become a cohesive force in Zimbabwecricket. We would like nothing better than for Alistair Campbellto achieve his potential and reach the level of a world classbatsman which his natural talent allows. But to do that he willneed to show a maturity which he has not yet shown, to replacerashness with discipline and carelessness with concentration. Inview of the damage his loose words have caused, he will need towork tirelessly to help rebuild and nurture team spirit. Thatwill take humility, maturity, strength of character and anunderstanding of others. We propose to give Alistair Campbell thechance to achieve this and hope that he will. But he must realisethat no team or responsible cricket union can allow division anddisunity to be paraded across newspaper pages as opposed tosensibly resolved by rational internal discussion. We hope theobservations we have made will help enhance that process. But anyrepeat of similar ill chosen and ill considered words to thePress by Alistair Campbell could, in our view, only be regardedin a serious light.Balancing all the factors we have tried to rationally analyse, wefind Alistair Campbell in breach of Clause 4.1.12.1 and 4.1.12.2of the his contract with the ZCU and in breach of Clause C8(a)and (b) of the ICC Code of Conduct (November 2000).The penalty imposed is a suspension of Alistair Campbell for twotest matches and two one-day internationals, which suspension issuspended for 12 months on condition Alistair Campbell does notin that period breach Clauses 4.1.12.1 and 4.1.12.2 of hiscontract with the ZCU or the equivalent clause of any newcontract and on condition that he does not in that period breachClause C8(a) or (b) of the ICC Code of Conduct (November 2000).THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE S MUCHECHETERE – CHAIRMANTHE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE D G BARTLETT – MEMBERThis the 31st dayof October, 2001