Don't make them cut their hair, you bastards!

The Zimbabwe cricket board is allegedly forcing its players to chop off their dreads otherwise the poor chaps get dropped from the national side!

Dreads are cool. Why the hell do they feel the need to do this?

I just wanted to redirect some attention towards this story and talk about how ridiculous and inane this issue is. Admittedly, I have not paid much attention to Zimbabwe's cricketing turmoil, as I probably should, but its never to late to talk about this injustice...and it is injustice. Why should players have to conform to ideals and set by others? As long as they get their job done as best as they can, their personal lives, and dress are their own business. (Hmm...can anyone else see the parallels with the Pakistani team?)

Why do these boards feel the need to play God and impose restrictions. It pisses me off to no end, and the Zimbabwe Cricket Board is now making my hate list.

You're very welcome!

Here's the story from Cricinfo...

It has emerged that three of the national side - Keith Dabengwa, Tawanda Mupariwa (pictured above) and Christopher Mpofu - were ordered to have their hair cut or be dropped as part of a new board dress code.

Mpofu and Dabengwa were the first to be chopped, although Mupariwa tried to resist and even wrote a letter to a ZC board member explaining why he wanted to keep his hair. However, he eventually gave up on Saturday evening and was seen spotting his new look when he took to the field for Zimbabwe A on Sunday.

...and some reactions and the reasons behind this order...

"I had to comply with ZC because they say it is a new dress code," one unnamed player told the newspaper. "There was nothing I could do because refusing meant I would be out on the final squad to the World Cup. If you ask me, this is gross human rights abuse but I need to look after my family. Cricket is my job and I cannot risk my job for dreadlocks."

Kevin Curran, Zimbabwe's beleaguered coach, refused to react, telling the paper: "I will not comment on those matters. Talk to the authorities."

The new dress code was introduced days after Peter Chingoka was re-elected as Zimbabwe Cricket's chairman. Critics point out that the side, which has now lost 13 consecutive ODIs, have greater worries than the hairstyles of the players. There is already unrest over the fact that players are paid in worthless Zimbabwe dollars while it is widely claimed that others, including administrators, are paid in US dollars.

This reflects a more widespread policy called Pfekazvakanaka (which means "dress well" in Shona), a rigid dress code, inside Zimbabwe being enforced by the ruling Zanu-PF party.

At the moment the country's supreme court is considering the case of a seven-year-old Rastafarian boy who was expelled from school for having dreadlocks. There are other instances of men with dreadlocks being accosted by the police and being forced to shave them off. It seems ZC's latest move is more evidence of that its leadership is merely aping the wishes of the government.

England extend 'winning streak'

Agreed, it's only a 2 game winning streak, but under the circumstances, its quite an achievement! It was a long shot to the finals, but as I had hoped, it just might turn out to be an interesting battle versus Australia. The advantages of streaks in ODI cricket are quite short lived, and as a result England will be quite confidant going into the first final having beaten Australia in their last encounter. The Aussies will also be taking this game very seriously and will not be resting Ponting or any key players. Since they were beaten pretty effectively last time, they must have realized that this English side may have finally got their act together.

Have they gotten their act together though? Don't know. From the match reports, the bowling wasn't too penetrating, while the top order was a quite brittle. Lets hope for the sake of competition that the English streak extends to 3 games!

Check out Monty and Vaughan do the tango in this picture. Should Vaughan really be stressing his knees this way?

Announcing the 'omar hates cricketers list'

Once in a while, we at omarlovescricket ironically find ourselves hating people. Thus there is an urge to write about them and complain. So after considerable thought, we are announcing the birth of the "omar hates cricketers list". This list will generously include cricketers, their boards, maybe the groundsmen, some fans, journalists....There is no limit! We will include whatever we hate at that point in time!

The inspiration for this idea came from King Cricket's fetish for lists. We like the lists at King Cricket and though we do enjoy cricketers, it's easier to write about people we hate. The words seem to flow naturally.

Oh and one more thing. Assume that we hate equally. It's not easy to quantify our hate, so we're not going to rank them.

So keep an eye out for further developments. I have already tagged a few stories with buggers I don't like. Adam Parore as a journalist, Brendan McCullum as a bastard, and the PCB on the whole are a good start...