Irani: 'Our job is to play cricket'
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Your support makes all the difference.The England all-rounder Ronnie Irani has insisted he will put cricket before politics to commit himself to England's World Cup trip to Zimbabwe.
Amid mounting opposition to Nasser Hussain taking his team to the troubled African nation and suggestions that several players have voiced serious misgivings, Irani will leave the moral decisions to the powers that be and instead concentrate on his own job.
"At the end of the day, we've just got to do what we've got to do," he said yesterday. "We're out there to perform in a world tournament – it's not like a private tournament against a rebel team or anything like that, it's a world tournament which we're involved in. We the players just want to get our heads down and concentrate on cricket, and that's it really, that's what we have to look at.
"Obviously, we've seen things that have happened and there are a lot of moral issues – rightly so. But we're out there to play cricket, and if we can put a smile on the faces of any young black kids in Africa, or any white kids, just by playing cricket, then hopefully we'll do that. That's our job and that's what we have to do."
Irani believes the decision to play and the relevant security issues are not matters which players should have to deal with. "You'd hope, obviously, being a British citizen or whether it's being a member of the England cricket team, that it has been looked into, and I believe it has," he said.
"It's not our job to make sure the safety aspect is going to be right. Our job is to go out there and perform, play cricket for England and entertain people. I'm a bit of a sheep, to be honest. I follow whatever I've been told, and whether that's the leader of your country or the leader of somebody in cricket circles, you do what you're asked to do."
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