The real danger lurks in the shadows

Peter Chingoka, the ZCU's chairman, is increasingly being dominated by the board's political elements © Getty Images

The crumbling façade of independence and reason the Zimbabwe Cricket Union has tried to maintain against a backdrop of social disintegration in the country finally collapsed on Friday. The final semblance of normality was wiped away with the revelation that Vince Hogg, the board's chief executive, had been overruled on a key matter by Ozais Bvute, the man charged with implementing racial quotas in team selections.

Bvute's formal role within the ZCU is vague, but it is his presence, and that of one or two others with dubious cricketing backgrounds, which sparked the showdown between Heath Streak and the board. Streak made clear his objection to non-cricketing individuals being involved in selection, and comments he made to Hogg on this subject triggered the chain of events which led to the board replacing him with Tatenda Taibu.

The government-controlled Herald immediately branded Streak a racist. That was utterly predictable, as anyone who has opposed any part of Robert Mugabe's regime is tarred with the same brush. But those who know Streak also know that the accusation is risible.

The subsequent meeting between the ZCU and a group of players - who are all, incidently, white - was nothing to do with Streak, although he attended, as did Hogg and Bvute. With the ZCU refusing to contemplate Streak's reinstatement - given that its political faction had ousted him, it was never a possibility - stalemate ensured. Hogg realised that the loss of up to a dozen leading players would cripple the already disintegrating Zimbabwe side - there are only about 70 first-class players in the country all told - and so gave the dissenters the weekend off to consider how the situation might be resolved.

But Bvute immediately overruled him and seized on the chance to strike - when the dissenters didn't appear to play for their sides in the weekend's Logan Cup matches, he banned them all. It was opportunist, and as unsubtle an implementation of the government's will as it is possible to have. So isolated, and so out of touch with reality, is the Mugabe regime that it probably believes that Zimbabwean cricket can lose almost all its white cricketers and emerge stronger. It is in for a frighteningly rude awakening.

What is emerging is that Bvute is perhaps the most powerful figure within the ZCU. His appointment was made by the ruling Zanu PF party, and local observers say that he is charged with ensuring 'political loyalty' to Mugabe. Last year, Mugabe's position of the ZCU's patron came up for re-election. It was assumed that he would be returned unopposed. But a ZCU member suggested that the matter should be discussed. "If the member knows what's good for his health," Bvute warned, "he will desist from asking such questions." So much for being apolitical.

Bvute is also the man who personally threw Henry Olonga off the team bus following his black-armband protest in the World Cup, and he also demanded that Olonga stop wearing any official Zimbabwe team kit. He was also involved in the attempts to drop Andy Flower from the side, a move thwarted by another threatened strike by several of the side. One former player is quoted as saying that Bvute "constantly tells team members that he has been to [information minister] Jonathan Moyo's office and been talking to him about cricket issues. If that's not being involved in politics in Zimbabwe today, nothing is."

Peter Chingoka, the ZCU's chairman, who has consistently maintained the line that the board is independent and is widely considered to be a good man, is also becoming marginalised. An insider at Friday's meeting said that Bvute and Max Ebrahim (another selector) repeatedly shouted Chingoka down when he tried to raise the subject of Streak's concerns. Ebrahim is believed to be a supporter of Mugabe, and his father, Ahmed, headed the task force which cleansed the side of dissidents. Chingoka is shrewd enough to realise that in a dictatorship, you don't upset people with the ear of the leadership, and that you have to make compromises to survive.

Another insider said that the board had gradually isolated and removed people who were genuinely apolitical, with the result that while it was until recently independent, in recent months it had become "dominated by politics". Chillingly, the insider added: ""I think the ZCU should be renamed the Zanu PF cricket union. There are certain individuals who are using the way the country's being run as a blueprint for the ZCU."

In ten days time Chingoka is due at Lord's to discuss this autumn's proposed tour of Zimbabwe by England - Bvute is also in the delegation - but it is hard to see how he can seriously hold those talks when his position - and that of his chief executive - are clearly utterly irrelevant. The England & Wales Cricket Board must be eyeing the situation as its Get Out Of Jail Free card.

These developments should also be worrying the International Cricket Council. To date, it has repeatedly put the self-interest of certain factions within it ahead of any semblance of morality. Even Malcolm Speed, its hardline chief executive, might struggle to maintain its stance if the ZCU carries on as it has in the last ten days.

Those with hidden agendas will probably try to play a combination of the race and colonial cards. But those now look convenient and too irrelevant. In yesterday's Times, Simon Barnes eloquently argued why the Zimbabwe situation cannot be ignored. "The contention that the Government of Zimbabwe is worthy of cricket's support is unacceptable," he wrote. "The contention that cricket should not concern itself with politics is impossible. In other words, there are only two possible ethical arguments for the ICC's support of Zimbabwe and neither stands up."