ECB standing firm over Zimbabwe trip
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Your support makes all the difference.The England and Wales Cricket Board chairman David Morgan insists his body will continue to defy public opinion and fulfil their World Cup match in Zimbabwe.
Morgan met the England players today at the team hotel to discuss potential reservations over the February 13 fixture in Harare.
Captain Nasser Hussain admitted on Sunday that the 15–man squad have 'split minds' on travelling to the strife–torn African country.
Some members have subsequently seen Fergal Keane's under–cover BBC documentary, which included a plea from the mayor of Harare not to go.
However, Morgan is adamant that unless the second security inspection headed by International Cricket Council chief executive Malcolm Speed and Dr Ali Bacher, tournament director of the World Cup, deem Zimbabwe unsafe, England will, like India, Pakistan, Namibia, Holland and Australia, honour their commitments.
Speed and Bacher are due in Zimbabwe tomorrow and will report to an ICC board meeting at 10am GMT this Friday.
Morgan said: "When the government made their position clear I think public opinion was very much against us going.
"But what I have heard from (ECB chief executive) Tim Lamb and (ECB director of corporate affairs) John Read since is that we have had a shift and turned things around considerably.
"The role of the ECB has been to make it clear to the British public what our commitments are in terms of the International Cricket Council and the World Cup.
"I think these views have been well received and that has changed public opinion.
"But I am sure the Fergal Keane thing will set public opinion going in the other direction."
The ECB, aware of a potential split in world cricket should they scratch the match, have stood by their decision to go despite Government calls to the contrary.
Members of parliament fear Hussain and his team being politicised by Robert Mugabe and his repressive regime.
But Morgan countered: "This issue is currently very big news and I think at the end of the day we will be admired in many circles for taking a decision that was ours to to take.
"It was a difficult decision and I think we will be more admired for having taken it in a very clear way, explaining the rationale for it, than there being a downside.
"The players are concerned about how their action of playing in Zimbabwe is going to be received by the British public in particular.
"I don't think there is any one of them that has a great appetite to go from a moralistic point of view.
"They are finding it hard to come to terms with going but they are fully aware that playing or not playing a cricket match in Zimbabwe is not going to make a jot of difference to people in Zimbabwe.
"Like me, they sympathise with what men, women and children are going through in Zimbabwe currently."
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