Journalist banned from Bulawayo

The ongoing problems faced by the media inside Zimbabwe continued with the barring of a senior cricket writer from Queens Sports Club in Bulawayo.

Mehluli Sibanda, who writes for the Sunday News, was told earlier this week by Stanley Staddon, the Bulawayo Metropolitan Cricket Association (BMCA) chairman, that he would not be allowed to cover the one-day match between Zimbabwe and the Warriors on Sunday (February 10).

Sibanda was given no reason, and the move is all the more surprising in that usually no accreditation is needed for a match which will attract few spectators and almost no journalists. A BMCA source said that Staddon was acting unilaterally and the issue had not been raised with the board.

The source told Cricinfo that Staddon and Sibanda have fallen out before. A few years ago Sibanda wrote a scathing article following Staddon's election as Matabeleland Cricket Association vice-chairman. It is believed that at one stage Staddon threatened legal action over the article but it never came to anything. Last year, during the Zimbabwe v Sri Lanka A match in Bulawayo, Staddon unsuccessfully attempted to ban Sibanda from joining other journalists claiming he was improperly dressed.

Staddon is a somewhat controversial character who was appointed to the Zimbabwe Cricket Union board in 2004 and the following year was named on the interim committee put in pace by the Sports and Recreation Commission. However, when a new board was elected in 2006, Staddon's name was a notable absentee. An attempt to regain his place last year failed when there was a clerical error in his application.