Too many of Utseya’s revolutions televised in Zimbabwe’s twilight zone

Sunday Times

TELFORD VICE, Cape Town

NO Australian’s passport was stamped when Ricky Ponting brought his team to Bulawayo to play Zimbabwe during the 2003 World Cup, so grateful was Robert Mugabe for the illusion of normality that big cricket beamed live to the world could lend his twilight zone of a country.

But many spectators who used World Cup games played in Zimbabwe to protest the brutality of the regime were detained and tortured. Andy Flower and Henry Olonga got off lightly: the black armbands they wore to “mourn the death of democracy in our beloved Zimbabwe” cost them their international careers but nothing more.

More than 11 years on, things have changed. Michael Clarke and his men were treated like any other VIPs when they arrived at Harare International Airport on Thursday to play in a one-day tournament that will also feature the home side and SA.

Ordinary Zimbabweans, meanwhile, have seen the dangerous futility of taking slogans to a gunfight.

But careers are still being ended, or at least shoved under a cloud. Prosper Utseya, a veteran of 156 ODIs, has been declared “suspicious” - not by the state but by the International Cricket Council, whose bowling action police have placed him under surveillance.

Utseya has 21 days to have his allegedly dodgy action tested. While the off-spinner at the heart of Zimbabwe’s attack remains free to bowl, his arm ball and quicker delivery will come under special scrutiny. Perhaps too many of his revolutions were televised.

Australia’s ranks include Mitchell Johnson, who spooked SA’s batsmen last summer to a degree that even Mugabe’s goon squad would have admired, and Phillip Hughes, who smashed a double century off SA A in a one-day game last month.

Shane Watson are Shaun Marsh are out with injuries. Also missing with official leave is David Warner, who has stayed home to give up being the only unruly kid in his house by becoming a father.

SA dealt ruthlessly with the Zimbabweans in a test and three ODIs in the past two weeks, and the Australians should beat the hosts at least as comfortably.

So interest in Monday’s game between Zimbabwe and Australia in Harare is a fraction of the focus on Wednesday’s clash, when the two big guns meet.

Hughes is likely to supply some of highest calibre ammo around, but Australia can be sure that Quinton de Kock will also be locked and loaded.

Having drilled Zimbabwe’s peashooter attack for 185 runs in three innings in Bulawayo, De Kock is primed for the conditions. The Aussies are also unlikely to get inside his head.

“I’m not one for planning,” De Kock said this week. “I know some of the guys are. They like to sit down and watch videos of the opposition. I just hit a few balls in the nets and when it comes to the day I’ll play.”

Sounds like a passport to success.