NZ’s big diplomatic threat - Twenty20 cricket
Keith is calling for a New Zealand to support a boycott of Zimbabwean cricket, including the upcoming World Twenty20 cup next year.
We’ve got to use every bit of leverage we have against the Mugabe regime.
I am appealing to New Zealand Cricket to stand squarely behind the England and Wales Board in this matter at the International Cricket Council annual conference this week. Our Government should back New Zealand cricket in taking such a strong stand.
If I were Keith I would have gone a step further and called for a ban on all Twenty20 of any kind – political or otherwise.
The alternative, if we are not going to boycott Zimbabwe, should be to demand Mugabe has to be in the Zimbabwe playing eleven before we allow Zimbabwe any cricket. (Which shouldn’t that hard as I would suspect most other people will either be in jail or too worried about their own family circumstances to play cricket). Let’s see how menacing and dictatorial he feels with Tim Southee bearing down on him from a bowler’s long run up. Best of three series to decide if Zimbabwe has free and fair elections?
June 30th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
frog said: …Mugabe has to be in the Zimbabwe playing eleven before we allow Zimbabwe any cricket
How about a small grenade, concealed in a cricket ball?
Oops… back to the Green non-violence charter principle!
June 30th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Froggie
I am warming to you, if you can get all 20/20 banned I MIGHT just vote for the Greens.
June 30th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Bro, we might need your vote though if we are to get Keith as Minister of Sport and make it happen! It’s that old chicken-egg thing
July 1st, 2008 at 8:39 am
Mugabe has been kept in power by the support of its neighbouring countries, South Africa in particular. Leave Zimbabwe alone and impose severe economic sanctions on its neighbours, especially South Africa. Unfortuately this straight forward solution would run counter to the interests of trans-national corporates so it will never be considered by the movers and shakers. I note also that several prominent UK politicians have now been outed as having substantial investements in Zimbabwe.
On cricket, 20/20 and One Day crap isn’t. I’m going to try and get one of our next years new MPs to introduce a private member’s bill restricting the use of the term “cricket’ to 1st class, test and school cricket.
July 1st, 2008 at 11:54 am
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>>On cricket, 20/20 and One Day crap isn’t. I’m going to try and get one of our next years new MPs to introduce a private member’s bill restricting the use of the term “cricket’ to 1st class, test and school cricket.
There you go again. That’s another interesting and topical thread spoilt by someone who wants to live in the past!
The pace of change, in all aspects of life in a developed country, is changing at the same rate as the internet is developing. Yet here we have an a (presumably) paid up political party member suggesting legislation that will stop the use OF A TERM!! This reeks of “newspeak’, something that I read of in my youth and laughed at! Ouch, I thought it was a novel, a figment of imagination, a thing of creativity, and here we have someone actually suiggesting it! Next we will have the league of committed lesbians - helping ensure the world isn’t overpopulated by joining a cult movement the likes of which was last seen in the Hitler Youth movement of 20th century Germany.
Nanny, Nanny! She wants to make me do what she wants me to do!
July 2nd, 2008 at 9:47 pm
I am developing Cricket one1. Twenty20 takes too long. My Beach Cricket(TM) patent is nearly complete, so you will not be able to play that without paying me a royalty.
But seriously, I think the situation in Zimbabwe is a bit different to the South African Apartheid situation.
In South Africa, a rugby playing minority supported the government and it’s policies, and had to be persuaded they were isolated and had to change. In Zimbabwe, a cricket playing majority has withdrawn support for a government that does not give a fu… fig. They need to know they are not alone.
Besides, we can beat Zimbabwe. Can we boycott South African rugby again instead.