Zimbabwe players prepare to sue board

Zimbabwe's players are preparing to go to court in a bid to extract their unpaid salaries and match fees from their cricket board, having set a deadline of January 31for the dispute to be resolved.

The players, who last week ended their strike action in the hope that a softening of their stance would ease the way for a resumption of negotiations, are owed about US$200,000 in total, including vehicle and fuel allowances, and most have not been paid since last August.

Now they have enlisted the services of a leading lawyer, Beatrice Mtetwa, and intend to take the case to the Harare High Court and pursue Zimbabwe Cricket for an index-linked sum of more than US$700,000.

"I have been engaged by the players to act for them in their claims," said Mtetwe,"but I am naturally waiting to see what happens in the next six days."

Even if the board was willing to resolve the situation, which seems unlikely, it appears that they have no funds available to do so. One of the major stumbling blocks is the exchange rate. The money owed was calculated at a rate of Zim$25,000 to the dollar, but that rate has since spiralled to Zim$85,000.

Zimbabwe Cricket's original contract offer made no allowance for index linking, but in a country with runaway inflation, that was never likely to be acceptable.

The renewed militancy will be a problem for ZC as it is considering ICC-driven proposals to play in a tri-series in Bangladesh which would feature Kenya as the third side. On Tuesday, Cricket Kenya also announced that it was in talks to host three ODIs against Zimbabwe, possibly as early as next month.