Tatenda Taibu

Kingston: Zimbabwe are back in Harare reflecting on a fruitless World Cup but many observers feel little more could be expected from a team that has lost all its senior players.

Apart from the benefit of their experience here, Zimbabwe will take away from the World Cup their $7 million participation fee.

That money, many are urging, should be used to invest in infrastructure and attract their key men back into the national team.

Aside from Bob Woolmer’s murder, one of the greatest sadnesses of this World Cup for many fans was the non-appearance of so many of Zimbabwe’s most talented players.

Top performers of the ilk of Andy Flower, Heath Streak, Tatenda Taibu, Andy Blignaut and Ray Price were watching from afar on television.

A Zimbabwe with these players, not to mention many more like Murray Goodwin, Grant Flower and Sean Ervine, could even have won Group D ahead of the West Indies, Pakistan and Ireland.

Given the International Cricket Council’s aim to globalise the sport, it was disappointing to many that one of their 10 Test nations — the game’s crown jewels — had apparently been allowed to disintegrate.

Zimbabwe were becoming competitive before internal cricket board politics crippled them, yet here they were at the World Cup sharing a tie with tournament debutants Ireland.

The main reason, apart from Zimbabwean internal politics, that has forced players away from representing their beloved country has been non-payment.

Their former captain, the articulate and promising wicketkeeper-batsman Taibu, retired at 21 because of the lack of money he received for his efforts.

The International Cricket Council has taken no action against Zimbabwe over such non-payment.

The country have a passionate coach in Zimbabwean Kevin Curran but it is doubted how long he will stay with such a background.

Zimbabwe Cricket must use their World Cup purse to lure all their best players back, its critics say.

Whether this means they have to buy out their lucrative County deals and sign them on long-term contracts that cannot be broken, many passionately feel it needs to be done.

Their schools system continues to produce talent but thereafter they become lost, critics argue, in an underdeveloped professional infrastructure.