Much Respect to Harmison

[flanflinger]

I feel Harmison has shown tremendous integrity and bravery but refusing to tour Zimbabwe. I know it is just 5 ODI's but if other players refused to tour then this would make a difference.

As the ECB, the ICC and the Government are failing to protect the integrity of English Cricket, although I don't feel they should be the people to do it, I feel the players should make a stance, as they did 18 months ago, and refuse to tour.

Sending a team devoid of the box-office names like Vaughan, Trescothick, Flintoff, Harmison etc, may send a signal that we are not happy about being forced tp tour.

Frankly, a good county team would still beat Zimbabwe 5-0....

[Richie Benauds Love Child]

I think a top club team could compete.

What about a team of cricket playing servicemen from the RAF, Army etc ?? That would **** Mugabe off no end, "Britain sends troops to ZIm" that would make a few headlines.....and they'd still nab a win or two.

[Goatman]

How about calling up this first choice XI:-

Coach:-

Richardson D.

Physio:-

Ehsan Mani

Team:-

Blair, A*
Brown, G
Prescott, J.+
Straw, J.
Reid, J.
Darling, A.
Hoon, G.
Benn, H.
Milburn, A.
Boateng, P.
Mandelson, P.

They could also take Howard, M. and Kennedy, C., the latter as a substitue fielder, and the former they can deliver a sharp rap across his shins with a 5-iron every time he opens his stupid mouth.
I admit, its a fairly unexpected touring squad but I'm sure they would do us all justice.

[Richie Benauds Love Child]

We'll why not goaty ? We're not playing a gainst a proper team, arguably not even in a proper country so why do have to send proper cricketers ?

[Rachael]

A politicians XI might not fulfil the ECB obligation to send a full strength team.... but were the entire 1st choice squad to make itself unavailable... I reckon you could put together a wonderful XI of players in the latter stages of their careers who could be justified to the ICC, would be experienced enough old pros to deal with the **** on and off the field and whose very presence would make a clear statement of how the ECB view this fixture.

I'd start by approaching ever single player who is England qualified and of Zimbabwean / South African extraction and (if necessary) coax them out of retirement: names like Smith, Lamb, Hick and Pietersen spring to mind...

I'd then approach the following: Crawley, Maynard, Hick, Hussain (capt), Ramps, Hegg (wk), White, Croft, Bicknell, Caddick, Saggers.

The one thing I would NOT do is approach any player in the early days of their career: I feel very strongly that the likes of Anderson, Mahmood, Flintoff, Harmison, Jones x2, Vaughan, Tresco and Hoggard should be kept well away from this fiasco: if it all blows up in their faces it's a burden that could drag down their careers for years to come.

[Goatman]

How about sending the 1st choice football team by mistake?"Oh, its a cricket tour! We really are terribly sorry....never mind.... It is the full strength side though, you know......."

[Richard Jenkins]

Just send 15 crickets and tell them 'Well we thought it was a cricket tour'
The crickets would still compete.
them there is a player strike and we've had to sack loads of them cos there not the right colour and we are sending the strongest 'green' side we can find.

[Ernest]

Lets not send any team at all, the players have enough on thier plates keeping in form, without the distraction of having to make individual decissions about weather or not to tour.
The government should issue a directive not to tour, that is within thier powers, certain bodies would heed this.

The ECG together with a government representative should meet with the ICC, and tell them they are not touring, on security grounds, and on moral grounds, and on historical grounds that make it unsafe to tour.
India and Pakistan at times of tension do not play each other, and thier respective governments make most of these decissions, never mind obout free movement of people here, this tour could and probably will cost lives, even if not British lives.

The government will not intervene even though they started the bandwagon at the Word Cup, because they had a rare think, and realised it may harm commerce.

The ECB a group with no backbone, should go it alone if they have to, the ICC have said they will listen, the ECB has not the balls, so we get fined, we keep appealing, and dont pay.

So we get banned, get real, who is going to refuse to play a side the stature of England, hardly anyone, because turnstile cash will talk, they want to see Flintoff in Australia, get revenge in New Zealand.Countries the world over will not stop playing England.

Call the ICC they ban England at thier peril, the ICC would be split beyond recovery, should they try such a ban.
fingers to the world.

[Occasional Fan]

Originally Posted by Rachael

A politicians XI might not fulfil the ECB obligation to send a full strength team.

Without Stephen Harmison, the team is already below full strength. Surely the ECB's obligation is to send the best team it can get to tour? This is why the decision in the end MUST come down to the level of the individual players. Only they can decide whether they are available or not. In all honesty (and without making this into too much of a theological debate, where I would not stand a chance at all!), I believe that moral decisions can really only be made at individual level. Commercial organisations and Governments are generally not all that good at that sort of stuff.

If I were a selector, acting as an individual and basing my actions on my own assessment of the situation against my own moral yardstick, I would refuse to select anyone for the team on the basis that, if I were to do so, I would be pressurising someone to undertake a tour which I would not undertake myself. By extension, I would not select anyone to replace Harmison (or anyone else who decides not to go), and I would not approach anyone who is not presently in the England ODI set up. If the numbers fall below eleven, so be it. I would let them go (if they still wanted to), let them play (if they still wanted to) and still be confident of my own ability to tell the ICC that we fielded the best team we could for this tour. And I'd be happy to show my face in public afterwards.

[Zainub]

Are we about to start the moral debate yet again, because frankly speaking I've had quite a bit of it already. Zimbabwe are over in Pakistan these days, and they would shortly be taking part in a tri-series also involving Sri Lanka and the hosts. I think I'd follow that series despite being in disagreement with the Zimbabwean board over the stance it has taken with the rebel players. I'm against seeing Zimbabwe play test cricket because these guys cannot compete at test level, they can barely do that at one-day level, so perhaps that's marginally acceptable. If Pakistan were to tour, I'd want them to back out on not moral grounds, but on grounds that state one should not be playing a team selected on anything other than merit.

I've heard too many people say the people of Zimbabwe have suffered, and Mugabe is to put blame to it all. I don't disagree with that at all. But that things like those are happening in a lot of other countries as well - sport goes on there, without much of debate over the moral aspects. What can cricketers do anyway? Would Harmison's boycott in anyway help to restore respectibility to the lives of housands of shattered Zimbabwean? No, a very emphatic no. All it would do , is make him appear brave, and noble, some one which as Finger would say "showed great integrity". And why in all the world should sport and cricket in particular be made to seen as the ultimate test of morality? British based trade agencies continue to work in a Mugabe-led Zimbabwe, British airways flights continue to land in Harare, doesn't this contradict the view that touring Zimbabwe would give the impression England cricketer's don't care about the politics going on there? If any one at all should be concerned it those buisness men and not the cricketers.

The only reason to not play Zimbabwe should be because their selectors are racially biased. It should have nothing to do with what has been going on there. Because it makes no differences what so ever. Not touring Zimbabwe will not make life easier for the people who have suffered because of the tyrant that is in charge there. If at all anything that could help, would be to tour Zimabwe. For the sake of providing the people there with something they can cheer about. A few brief moments to cherish.