Zimbabwe Cricket suspension: Raza, Taylor express disappointment

New Delhi, July 19 (IANS) The decision of the International Cricket Council (ICC) to suspend Zimbabwe Cricket (ZC) has left many cricketers from the country disappointed.

At the ICC annual conference which concluded on Thursday in London, a unanimous decision was made after they felt that Zimbabwe Cricket had not been able to provide a process for conducting free and democratic elections.

Sikandar Raza and former captain Brendan Taylor were among the many who came out in support of Zimbabwe's status as a Test-playing nation.

Sikander, who has played 12 Tests, 97 ODIs and 32 T20Is for the country, took to Twitter to express his disappointment and said: "How one decision has made a team, strangers. How one decision has made so many people unemployed. How one decision effect so many families. How one decision has ended so many careers. Certainly not how I wanted to say goodbye to international cricket."

Taylor, who appeared in 28 Tests, 193 ODIS and 34 T20Is in his 15-year-long career, tweeted: "ICC, it's heartbreaking to hear your verdict and suspend cricket in Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwe Cricket has no government background yet our chairman is an MP? Hundreds of honest people, players, support staff, ground staff totally devoted to ZC out of a job, just like that."

Dejected and heartbroken by the ICC decision, another Zimbabwe player Solomon Mire, who played 2 Tests, 47 ODIS and 9 T20Is, announced his retirement in a Facebook post and write: "It has been a week of emotional highs and lows in sport and sadly not a good one for Zimbabwe cricket but just wanted to officially address everyone else. I informed the players and tech staff of my decision at the end of the recent tour and wanted to formally announce my decision to retire from Zimbabwe cricket in all formats with immediate effect."

The result of the suspension is that ICC's funding to Zimbabwe Cricket will be frozen and its teams will not be participating in any ICC events. The ICC has also said that the elected Zimbabwe Cricket Board be reinstated to office within three months, and progress in this respect will be considered again at the October board meeting.