While the world looks at Zimbabwe and waits for the elections results to be announced, inside the country the men who have run cricket in the country in recent years – Ozias Bvute and Peter Chingoka – sweat it out hoping that Robert Mugabe, who has rewarded their slavish faithfulness handsomely, holds on. If he remains, so do they.
The international community allow them to retain their place at cricket’s top table because India are in receipt of their unquestioning votes when it matters and South Africa … well, we all know about South Africa’s stance on Zimbabwe.
Bvute’s overt racism and bullying is well documented and few, even within the ICC, are fooled by him. Chingoka is a smoother operator and one who has been at cricket’s top table, more often than not downing industrial quantities of Johnnie Walker, for close on two decades.
Both men are paid modest salaries by Zimbabwe Cricket, but enough to live very well by the country’s standards. And yet both have accumulated fortunes which enable them to maintain lavish lifestyles both in and outside the country. They stand to lose more than their positions if Mugabe tumbles.
