Brendan Taylor has all but made himself available for national selection after the ICC released funds to Zimbabwe Cricket to ensure outstanding player and staff payments can be made.
Taylor was one of five senior players – others being Graeme Cremer, Craig Ervine, Sikandar Raza and Sean Williams – who sat out of the T20I tri-series involving Australia and Pakistan and the subsequent ODI series against Pakistan because of protracted non-payment. Taylor will now return if he receives his pending dues.
“I’m very confident that great strides have been taken to resolve the players’ issues. It’s been a long-winded and frustrating time, but the good thing is that we are moving forward and the wheels are in motion,” Taylor told Zimbabwean newspaper The Standard . “It’s time to get back to work at the start of August and prepare for the two very big series in South Africa and Bangladesh. I’m looking forward to that and drawing a line in the sand and moving forward.”
Zimbabwe’s players are awaiting salaries for four months along with match fees backdated to August 2017, since which they’ve played three Tests, 20 ODIs and six T20Is. ESPNcricinfo understands that the payment is expected to be made by Friday (August 3). If this happens, the players will then meet their representative, lawyer Gerald Mlotchwa, to decide their next steps.
If players decide to follow Taylor’s lead, Zimbabwe could be back to full strength by the time they tour South Africa at the end of September. They are also slated to tour Bangladesh in October.
The ICC handed ZC a package of measures to help manage their debts, following the governing body’s annual conference in Dublin in July. At the core of the solution is a drip-feed of ICC funds, rather than the usual two lump sums a year, which should lead to more regulated spending by ZC.
Though the details of this plan haven’t been made public, a number of Zimbabwe players have demanded to see a financial plan that outlines how they would receive payment owed to them as well as money that will be due to them in the future before committing to the national side. Their questions could be answered next week.
Despite the temporary boycott, Taylor, who opted out of his Kolpak deal with Nottinghamshire a year before it expired to return to Zimbabwe, said he has not thought of leaving his home country again.
“I certainly haven’t at any stage considered moving away from Zimbabwe Cricket,” he said. Coming back from England and signing a long deal with Zimbabwe Cricket means that I’m here to stay. I want to finish my playing days here with Zimbabwe and contribute on and off the field and make sure that Zimbabwe Cricket is left in a better place that when I personally and other players started our careers, and is in good hands.”
Taylor hopes the formation of a player association, which was resurrected earlier this year, will ensure Zimbabwe’s players can have a collective voice.
“Obviously towards the back end of your career those are the most important things players need to be doing and making an impact and ensuring that there’s an association and young players who are coming through can benefit from what you will have left behind. Forming an association was a collective decision from a few senior players. We decided it was the right time to formulate an association, which is within our rights.”
Source: ESPN Crickinfo