On a Sticky Wicket

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For cricket fans, it's a delicious irony that South Africa is trying to be the voice of reason in the sport's latest political showdown. Until little over a decade ago, the country was cricket's pariah, barred from international competition for refusing to play against nonwhite teams. Now, as another African nation — Zimbabwe — faces isolation ahead of cricket's quadrennial World Cup, South Africa is calling for politics to be kept out of the sport. A new boycott, says Ali Bacher, captain of the South African team during the wilderness years, "would not just be a bad day for cricket, it would be a bad day for international sport."

Others argue that it would be a bad day for cricket if any World Cup matches are played in Zimbabwe, South Africa's neighbor to the northeast; playing there, they say, would be a tacit endorsement of Robert Mugabe's repressive regime. Though South Africa is the tournament's principal host, a few matches are set to be played in Kenya and Zimbabwe. And since Christmas, a succession of British ministers have called on the English cricket team to boycott their Feb. 13 game against the home team in Harare. Taking their cue from International Development Secretary Clare Short, many British political commentators have sputtered at the thought of the captain of England, Nasser Hussain, shaking hands with Mugabe before the game.

Even Prime Minister Tony Blair weighed in, calling on the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) to withdraw from the Harare game: "In the light of the deteriorating political and humanitarian situation in the country, ministers have made clear that if the decision were for them, England should not play in Zimbabwe." His Australian counterpart, John Howard, appealed to the International Cricket Council, the sport's governing body, to boycott Zimbabwe, citing "appalling human rights abuses occurring in that country." Blair and Howard stopped short of ordering their cricketers not to go; that decision, they say, rests with the game's authorities. The ECB and the Australian Cricket Board say they are contractually obligated to field teams at the World Cup, and would likely face hefty fines — up to €1.5 million — for any breach. They say only a direct order from their respective governments would make them pull out. The players, too, want the government to make the call: in a newspaper column, Hussain said it was ridiculous to expect players to make such political decisions.

The British government's position rests on something of a double standard. After all, Blair seems to have no problem with British firms doing business with Zimbabwe: trade between the countries amounted to over €195 million last year, most of it guaranteed by Britain. Says Heath Streak, captain of the Zimbabwe team: "If they target cricket alone, that's plain hypocritical."

A British government spokesman argues that economic sanctions would be counterproductive because they would harm ordinary Zimbabweans. "The problem is not with the people ... it's with the governing regime." A cricket boycott, the government contends, would only hurt the regime — and Mugabe personally, since he is patron of the Zimbabwe Cricket Union.

But shaking Hussain's hand won't win Mugabe glory with his people — cricket isn't especially popular in Zimbabwe — or with the international community, which has already branded him a despot. On the other hand, he could make political capital out of a boycott; he's already started, by painting the potential boycotters as racists determined to keep cricket white. That's a ridiculous charge, but some people will buy it.

The last time race was an issue in cricket, it led to the isolation of South Africa. Those who favor a boycott of Zimbabwe point out that it was an effective tool against the apartheid regime. But Bacher, now head of the World Cup organizing committee, says the moral grounds behind the ban on his team don't apply to Zimbabwe. "South Africa had a whites-only team because of apartheid," he says. "Zimbabwe has a fully integrated, multiracial team. There is no comparison."

At week's end, a boycott remained a strong possibility, but the English and Australian governments, cricket boards and teams were each waiting for one of the others to call the play. When sport is required to do more that it is designed to, the most frequent outcome is confusion