Australian Prime Minister John Howard has banned the national cricket team from their upcoming three-match tour of Zimbabwe. The ban has now placed increased pressure on the International Cricket Council (ICC) to suspend links with Zimbabwe.

Traditional news media that want to cover sport events on their websites are coming under increasing pressure from sports federations. Right now the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) are negotiating with the International Cricket Council and the International Rugby Board to keep their respective 2007 World Cups open for traditional print media.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) is lawyering up in an attempt to stamp out racism at cricket matches. The Chief Executives’ Committee has decided to ask a lawyer to draft legislation to deal with racist behaviour at matches and then ask its members to lobby their respective governments to get them to adopt the laws.

Zimbabwe Cricket has run into difficulties after the country’s Sport and Recreation Commission (SRC) has refused to endorse its new draft constitution because it is undemocratic.

Last year, the government in New Zealand refused entry visas to a cricket team from Zimbabwe in protest against human rights abuses by Zimbabwe’s government. Now the New Zealand government has agreed to pay New Zealand Cricket compensation to cover losses from the cancelled tour.

In Bangladesh, a group of sports journalists and press photographers are still waiting to hear the outcome of an official government probe into a brutal police attack on them at a cricket test match between Bangladesh and Australia at the end of April. The Asian Human Rights Commission is concerned about the delay of the report and allegations that the probe commission has listened to fake eyewitnesses.

In Bangladesh, the government has set up an independent inquiry to find out why police attacked 20 sports journalists and photographers at Chittagong Divisonal Stadium during the lunch break of a cricket match between Bangladesh and Australia on Sunday 16 April.