England's Zimbabwe tour is reduced
HARARE, Zimbabwe -- England's controversial tour of Zimbabwe has been cut to four one-day matches from five, England and Wales Cricket Board chairman David Morgan announced on Friday.
"This tour will consist of four one-day internationals -- two in Harare and two in Bulawayo," he said.
England finally arrived in Zimbabwe on Friday after the authorities lifted a ban on 13 British journalists.
The brief tour had been due to begin in the Zimbabwean capital on Friday.
"The Harare matches will now take place on Sunday and Wednesday. The team will transfer to Bulawayo on Friday and they will play in Bulawayo on Saturday and Sunday," Morgan told a news conference in Harare.
The tour has been under threat following widespread protests that playing in Zimbabwe would lend legitimacy to widely criticized President Robert Mugabe.
Opposition supporters have been subjected to five years of repression and Mugabe's election victories have been denounced by independent international observers as the result of violent intimidation and fraud.
Several of England's top players, including all-rounder Andrew Flintoff and bowler Steve Harmison, refused to go, and captain Michael Vaughan said he would rather not go to Zimbabwe because of the political controversy.
Officials in Mugabe's information office said that the journalists had been cleared to enter the country on the understanding that they will be coming to exclusively cover the cricket matches, not to meddle in politics.
The state-controlled daily Herald quoted an unnamed state security official as saying that in the media group there were a number of elements on a covert mission that are using cricket as a cover. "We are definitely on the lookout," the source said.
It is the second time that England's cricketers have been mired in a controversy over playing in Zimbabwe.
They refused to play in a World Cup match in the strife torn country last season, a decision that almost certainly cost them a place in the second stage of the competition.
