Cash-strapped Zimbabwe cancels competition

Questions over Zimbabwe Cricket's accounts are likely to resurface after it reportedly cancelled this season's national league because of cash shortages.

The league, the premier non first-class competition, was due to start earlier this month but was officially postponed at the last minute. Few hold out much hope that it can now take place.

Cricinfo has learned that matters came to a head when hoteliers in small cities where some games were scheduled refused to accept cheques from ZC in payment.

The ongoing five-ODI series against Sri Lanka was supposed to be split between Harare and Bulawayo but is now being played on in Harare, again because ZC claimed the costs of playing in two centres were prohibitive.

Although Zimbabwe's economy is in utter disarray - the latest inflation rate is 231,000,000% - the board is protected from the worst of it as it receives all payments from the ICC in US dollars.

There have been concerns regarding the ZC finances for several years, and in 2007 Malcolm Speed, at the time the ICC chief executive, said that its accounts could not be relied on and they had been "deliberately falsified to mask various illegal transactions from the auditors and the government of Zimbabwe". Although a subsequent forensic audit by the ICC cleared officials of any wrongdoing, the ICC refused to make its finding public, fuelling speculation that all was not as straightforward as it was portrayed.

Less than 18 months ago ZC received around US$11 million from the ICC following the 2007 World Cup. Given it runs only limited domestic competitions and has little international cricket to support, it appears remarkable if, as appears the case, it has run out of money.

Cricinfo was unable to obtain a statement from Zimbabwe Cricket as the board will not respond to any media queries put to it by us