New Zealand Cricket passes government concerns on to ICC

New Zealand Cricket has written to the International Cricket Council to pass on a request from the New Zealand government that the ICC transfer World Cup matches from Zimbabwe.

New Zealand Cricket chief executive Martin Snedden confirmed that the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Phil Goff, had faxed a letter to New Zealand Cricket on New Year's Day requesting that New Zealand Cricket ask the ICC to transfer the six World Cup matches scheduled for Zimbabwe to other venues.

New Zealand is not scheduled to play any matches in Zimbabwe as part of the World Cup.

"The Government is seeking support from the international cricket community to move fixtures from Zimbabwe in order to make it clear to President Robert Mugabe that the whole international community views his actions as completely unacceptable.

"The government has also expressed concerns about internal security in Zimbabwe and about the lack of assistance available to New Zealanders in Zimbabwe as a result of MFAT having no permanent presence there," Mr Snedden said.

The ICC's stance on political issues to date has been that political considerations are for governments and not sporting organisations to determine and that political considerations would not be a factor in the ICC's decision making processes as to whether matches should be played in Zimbabwe.

"The issue of security in Zimbabwe is not a large concern for New Zealand Cricket as the New Zealand cricket team is not scheduled to play any matches in Zimbabwe.

"The ICC sent a high level delegation to Zimbabwe in November to address safety and security issues. The delegation included a security adviser and players representative and included meetings with the acting Australian High Commissioner, the British High Commissioner and local police and security officials.

"There is a comprehensive security and safety plan in place and the delegation was satisfied with security arrangements.

"The ICC will continue to monitor the safety of Zimbabwe as a venue," Mr Snedden said.

"While New Zealand Cricket is happy to pass the government's comments to the ICC, we must make it clear that New Zealand Cricket is a sports body not a political organisation.

"Sports bodies are not in a position to make political judgements about which countries sport should be played in, based on those countries internal political environments. These decisions are best left to governments which can, where appropriate, impose appropriate sporting and trade sanctions."