New Zealand tour of Zimbabwe under cloud again

New Zealand are likely to pull out of their rescheduled tour of Zimbabwe following the collapse of public health system in the African nation. Major Western governments have advised against non-essential travel to Zimbabwe, and the foreign ministries of Australia, New Zealand and the UK have warned that public hospitals there were experiencing shortages of staff, water, power, medicines and equipment.

New Zealand Cricket (NZC) chief executive Justin Vaughan and the New Zealand Cricket Players' Association boss Heath Mills expressed their concerns about the proposed trip, which has already been delayed once.

"The pragmatist in me suggests that there's still another two years to go in the current international playing programme and we could look to postpone again," Vaughan told the Sunday Star-Times. "Medical facilities are a concern. You can go to countries and protect yourself against infectious diseases and the like as long as you've got a decent standard of hygiene and healthcare services available to you.

"We're not in possession of all the facts quite yet, but it appears that [health] could be quite a significant concern. Certainly, NZC is non-negotiable on the matter of putting our team at risk at any time."

Mills said he feared for player safety if the medical situation didn't improve in Zimbabwe. "I'd be very concerned about them going in the existing circumstances," he said. "I fail to see how you can put the team into a country which is effectively third world, and when there's so little confidence in the health infrastructure.

"We need to be confident our players can get the appropriate standard of medical care. If you can't get those assurances, I'd be very uncomfortable about the team going."

New Zealand postponed the tour - originally scheduled to be held in July this year - for a year after a decision was made in February with the New Zealand government vetoing the trip on political grounds, a decision which protected NZC from being fined for breaching a touring contract.

Under the ICC rules, a team may only withdraw from a sanctioned tour for health and safety reasons, but is immune from penalty if prevented from touring by a government order.

Despite Zimbabwe's shaky political situation, Murray McCully, a spokesman for the foreign minister said no decision had yet been made about the tour. "We're keeping a watching brief on the situation in Zimbabwe as things are still relatively fluid, politically and security-wise, and the situation could easily change significantly before the tour is scheduled to begin."

Vaughan said a government decree against touring Zimbabwe would make things easier but such decisions couldn't be made lightly. "They [the New Zealand government] stepped in to cause the postponement of this year's visit ... so we pushed the tour forward 12 months," Vaughan said. "And that's what we might do again."