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Robson Sharuko Senior Sports Editor
TWO of the most powerful figures in the International Cricket Council will arrive in Harare this week in yet another powerful endorsement of a grand masterplan to breathe life into the country’s second biggest sporting discipline.

ICC chief executive Dave Richardson and chief financial officer Ankur Khanna are on a crucial tour of Zimbabwe.

It’s the first visit by an ICC delegation since the leadership of the world cricket controlling body decided against putting Zimbabwe’s membership on notice, during their meeting in Dublin, Ireland, at the end of June and, in the process, ensured that they will continue to inject substantial funding into the domestic game.

The decision by the ICC to throw their full weight behind the revival of cricket in this country, rather than back Zimbabwe’s suspension, was a massive boardroom victory for the game here and ensured that the first tranche of the $73 million financial injection, in this current cycle, was released into the ZC coffers last month.

Had ZC’s Full Membership status been suspended, during that make-or-break meeting in Ireland, where the issue of the mountain of debt which had been choking the organisation was tackled, the funding from the ICC for this cycle would have been significantly reduced from $73 million to about $8 million.

Zimbabwe Cricket chairman Tavengwa Mukuhlani and the organisation’s consultant Vince van der Bijl, a South African national with a vast network of connections in international cricket, played very key roles in the resolution of that explosive case in Ireland.

The injection of funds also enabled ZC to pay off outstanding dues to their players, technical and office staff and it also opened a window for the likes of Brendan Taylor, Graeme Cremer and Craig Ervine — who had excused themselves from national duty because of a pay dispute — returning to the Chevrons’ fold.

The high-profile visit by Richardson and Khanna to Zimbabwe this week also rubbishes the perception created by South African freelance cricket writer, Telford Vice, who on Sunday questioned why the Chevrons should be allowed to enter South Africa because, in his flawed opinion, they are representatives of a ‘’fascist’’ country.

His toxic article drew sharp condemnation from a cross section of Zimbabweans yesterday, with some of them even accusing him of being a racist, while some said he indirectly also criticised his fellow countrymen — Van der Bijl, Makhaya Ntini, Lance Klusener and Peter de Villiers — who have all worked, or are working, in this country.

Others said his use of the word ‘’we’’, was misplaced because he could not be expected to speak on behalf of millions of South Africans, especially the majority black people of that country.

Now, the leaders of world cricket are also coming to this town as correctly reported by The Herald recently.

‘’International Cricket Council chief executive officer David Richardson and chief financial officer Ankur Khanna are visiting Zimbabwe this week to discuss Zimbabwe Cricket’s strategic business, financial and cricket plan”, ZC said in a statement.

‘’As has been previously reported, the ICC has a controlled funding process in place as per ICC Board requirements to assist ZC in its restructuring project.

‘’We are also delighted to welcome Jacques Faul, the chief executive officer at Titans Cricket in South Africa, who will use his vast experience as a cricket administrator to assist us in the process.

‘’The delegation will be in Zimbabwe for a workshop scheduled for 31 August-1 September in Harare.’’

Richardson, who is a former South African cricketer, was last in Zimbabwe in March this year during the ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier.

ICC chairman Shashank Manohar visited this country in August last year on a five-day official visit showing that, beyond Vice’s deeply-flawed impression of this nation, there are a lot of people who see beyond the blinkers which have been preventing him from seeing the other side of this country.

Interestingly, Ironically, Vice recently described Van der Bijl, who has chosen to work in this country as a consultant and whose input is already making a huge difference in the game, as a very ‘’upright’’ individual.

‘’Vince van der Bijl is the most up­right man in cricket, a prop­erly con­scious fig­ure in a sport that too of­ten strug­gles to do the right thing,’’ Vice wrote in June this year.

‘’So why has he signed up as a con­sul­tant for the chron­i­cally un­cred­i­ble Zim­babwe Cricket, which crashes from do­ing one wrong thing through a string of oth­ers?’’

Van der Bijl’s response was classic.

“I be­lieve sport changes and en­er­gises peo­ple, even so­ci­eties,” Van der Bijl replied. “As Man­dela said, sport reaches peo­ple in a way that politi­cians can­not.

“Any­one who has been to Zim­babwe will know how easy it is to be en­chanted with the char­ac­ter and friend­li­ness of its peo­ple and see the mag­nif­i­cence and amaz­ing po­ten­tial of this coun­try. That com­bi­na­tion needs to be nur­tured in ev­ery way pos­si­ble even though cricket there has been through such a dif­fi­cult time.

“How can you turn your back when you are asked to as­sist? It is a priv­i­lege to try and help. It will be a tough road for ZC but so worth­while for all in­volved — hope­fully with the sup­port and in­vest­ment of all around the game from in­di­vid­u­als, play­ers, and all the way to the In­ter­na­tional Cricket Coun­cil and gov­ern­ment, ZC and the cricket lovers in Zim­babwe can turn this around to for­mer glory. What a thing that will be.

“Cricket has a rich cricket her­itage here and that is some­thing the cricket world should savour and re­fresh. The sports project I’m in­volved in, in Masi­phumelele, an im­pov­er­ished town­ship in Cape Town near Kom­metjie, has taught me what’s pos­si­ble. Sport gen­uinely changes lives.

“Nat­u­rally, as a con­sul­tant, I re­ally hope I can make a dif­fer­ence. It will not be for want of try­ing.

“The World Cup qual­i­fiers, so suc­cess­fully run in Harare this year, re­vealed the pas­sion the fans, play­ers, ad­min­is­tra­tion and ev­ery­one in­volved in stag­ing this event have for cricket and that they have that deep de­sire to make the dif­fer­ence. That is what makes the fu­ture of the game in Zim­babwe sus­tain­able.”

That’s why others, including the ICC leaders who are in town this week, are willing to see something different from Vice.