"On a day in which perhaps thousands will die of state-sponsored famine, the English nation as represented by its cricket team will be guests of its perpetrator, Mugabe. Against these facts, a game of cricket is wholly absurd. We must withdraw. On Holocaust Memorial Day our sensitivities should be burning. I wholly endorse this appeal for you to pick up the 'phone and buy this game off'."

Sir Bob Geldof

© Aegis

"Right now in Zimbabwe, millions of people are facing death by starvation at the hands of Robert Mugabe's dictatorial regime. Is our conscience clear that we have done all we can to stop it?"

Yann Martel
2002 Booker Prize winner

© Cricnet

"The Professional Cricketers' Association is delighted to be able to support such an innovative and progressive idea, and will certainly help to publicise the telephone hotline (0906 1200 005), which we see as not only providing good information about the oppression of Mugabe's Government, but also as representative of the strength of feeling that exists in Britain about the issues surrounding England's match in Zimbabwe set for 13 February."

Richard Bevan
Managing Director of the Professional Cricketers' Association

"It is great that ordinary people on the street are coming out in support of the national team. But it is important if ordinary people are showing solidarity, that the government should come out in support too. Perhaps they can match us pound by pound."

Robert Croft
Former England Cricket Player

© Cricnet

"The England Team are representing our country. They have made it clear that they do not want to play in Zimbabwe. As a country we should back them. Supporting this appeal does that. It also shows the Zimbabwean people that we care."

John Barnes
Former England footballer

© Image used courtesy of Sporting-heroes.net

Listen to him speak

"In my view, this is beyond politics, this is about Humanity. In Zimbabwe last July I saw people being terrorised by their government, and I could not believe that the cricket world cup - a festival to celebrate one of the greatest sports - could take place with that as a backdrop. I think it is remarkable that in the face of the problems in Zimbabwe, the Aegis Trust today has come forward with a practical response to a problem which up until now has proved intractable.

"Can I reiterate how important it is to remind people of the telephone number, which is 0906 1200 005. That means an automatic donation to the fund. I'm going to put a pound on the table here, and I think you all might do the same just to start the ball rolling.

"We should perhaps mention that the patron of the Zimbabwe
Cricket Union is Robert Mugabe."

Rt Hon Michael Ancram MP, QC
Shadow Foreign Secretary

Listen to him speak

"The situation in Zimbabwe is absolutely desperate. The horrors, the violence, the deliberate policy of starving sections of the population, all these things have rightly drawn the worlds opprobrium over the last couple of years. The England team have been put in a very difficult position, and I believe that the Government should be providing compensation for that.

"But what we must not lose sight of, at any stage in all of this, is that there must continue to be strong pressure on Zimbabwe to put their house in order, to stop the killings, to bring about true democracy."

Michael Moore
MP
Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs spokesperson

Listen to him speak

"The players have spoken out very courageously on moral and political grounds. Taking those things into account, I still think the ICC should call the match off. It can be relocated to South Africa.
"There is no doubt at all that if it does take place, it will be used by Mugabe as a political triumph. Let us continue the pressure and continue to say that this is one country we should not send our cricket team to."

Lord Hoyle
(Labour)
Chair of the all-party cricket group.