Australia cancels Zimbabwe cricket tour

The Australian Cricket Board today cancelled the team’s tour of Zimbabwe, in the wake of widely-criticised elections that returned Robert Mugabe to power.

Australia’s foreign minister Alexander Downer had urged the ACB to scrap next month’s tour, saying it would send the wrong signals to the new government.

‘‘What President Mugabe has done in the last couple of weeks, simply stealing an election through cheating ... we hardly, as a country, would want to feel that we were providing one of the greatest rewards by sending the world’s leading cricket team to a cricket-loving country,’’ he told Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio.

Earlier, Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs had advised Australians to put off travelling to Zimbabwe for holiday or business purposes.

Downer said that because Australian prime minister John Howard had played a leading role in Zimbabwe’s suspension from the Commonwealth, the players could become targets.