Why England are being forced to play
Standard Sport14 April 2012
- Under the International Cricket Council's Future Tours Programme, each of the 10 Test-playing nations must play each other home and away every five years.
- The rules of the ICC lay down a minimum penalty of £1.1million if a country pulls out of a scheduled tour. The worst case scenario, albeit unlikely, is a suspension from world cricket. The England Cricket Board only agreed to send a team to Zimbabwe in the first place because of the threat of such sanctions.
- Tours can only be cancelled for safety and security reasons or if a government so directs its cricketing authority.
- During the World Cup 18 months ago, a letter from a pressure group - the Sons and Daughters - which threatened to "send them [the England team] from Zimbabwe in coffins", was used to justify such an issue, though the ICC, claiming it was a hoax, did not agree and England forfeited their points and £800,000.
- The Government has refused to instruct the players not to make the trip to Zimbabwe. It opposes the tour but sports minister Richard Caborn said it does not have the legal power to prevent the tour. Caborn said: "We are not in the game of instructing the ECB or any other sporting body not to do things."
