Australian cricket chiefs have abandoned next month's proposed tour of Zimbabwe, owing to growing safety concerns - but denied they had bowed to political pressure. The current world Test and one-day champions had been due to play a two Tests tour in Zimbabwe from April 11, after the end of their current tour of South Africa. But the Australian Cricket Board (ACB) pulled the plug following Robert Mugabe's controversial re-election, and Canberra's insistence that Australian prime minister John Howard's part in having Zimbabwe suspended from the Commonwealth could put Australians at risk there.

But Bob Merriman, the ACB chairman, denied that the board had bowed to pressure. Merriman said the decision to withdraw was made overnight, after the government refused to downgrade its warning to Australians not to travel to the strife-torn country.

"The security of our people is our first priority and it is now clear that travelling to Zimbabwe would compromise their safety," Merriman told a press conference. "This is a decision that the ACB has deliberated on deeply and it is recognised that it will impact most on the cricket community within Zimbabwe. This is something that is deeply regretted.

"Nevertheless the safety of the players and team management must take precedence, and I hope there are other initiatives that the ACB and the Zimbabwe Cricket Union can adopt that will provide much-needed support to the game in Zimbabwe."

Merriman said a proposal to play the matches in South Africa had been ruled out by Zimbabwe. James Sutherland, the ACB's chief executive, said they were aiming at rescheduling the matches with Zimbabwe to 2004. Sutherland denied reports that the players had been considering a boycott, but said the decision would come as no surprise to them.

Malcolm Gray, the Australian who is president of the International Cricket Council, said that Australia would not be penalised for the decision. "The game has already lost recent series in Pakistan, and this latest disruption is regrettable from a cricketing perspective," Gray said in a statement. "Having said that, the safety and security of teams, officials and spectators must always remain the priority in judging whether a series or match should go ahead."

Australia's foreign-affairs minister Alexander Downer denied that the ACB had been pressured into making the decision, but said that if Australia had toured Zimbabwe, Mugabe would have used the series for propaganda purposes.

"This is a sensible decision," he told reporters. "It would have been politically unhelpful if our cricketers had visited a country whose so-called president has just stolen a presidential election in total defiance of the norms of democracy and civil rights.

"Our cricket team cannot go to Zimbabwe because President Mugabe has turned Zimbabwe into a country which is too dangerous for our team to visit, and this is a terrible indictment of President Mugabe and his government.

"The Australian cricket team wouldn't have wanted to be used for propaganda purposes but President Mugabe would have done everything he could to have used the world's best cricket team for propaganda purposes as a sign of 'Well, the world has been a bit grumpy but at the end of the day it's just business as usual in Zimbabwe'."

Australia's next Test series is scheduled to come in Pakistan in September.

The last time Australia refused to tour a country was during the 1996 World Cup in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka when they declined to play matches in Colombo.

Earlier this week Zimbabwe Cricket Union (ZCU) officials had urged the Australians to avoid applying what they described as sporting sanctions. "There really is no threat whatsoever to the Australian cricketers," said ZCU security chief Dan Stannard on Monday. He said that reports of security concerns had been exaggerated and denied suggestions of anti-Australian feeling in Zimbabwe. "There is no anti-Australian feeling. All the blacks I've spoken to said you cannot lump politics and sport - quite right."

Even though they have been suspended from the Commonwealth, it has been confirmed that Zimbabwe are still free to compete at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester in July.

© Wisden CricInfo Ltd