Stephen Brenkley: Morgan's vow which led to the 'tour of shame'

A rash promise made in 2002 condemned England's cricketers to this trip and national vilification

If any good has come from England's wretched tour, it has been to focus attention again on the plight of Zimbabwe's people. Had the misbegotten venture been abandoned months ago, then so would have been millions of the deprived and starving.

If any good has come from England's wretched tour, it has been to focus attention again on the plight of Zimbabwe's people. Had the misbegotten venture been abandoned months ago, then so would have been millions of the deprived and starving.

At least this way, cricket's enduring hold has ensured that the issues get aired once more. The desperate state of the nation has once more entered public consciousness and perhaps now it will be embedded deeply enough for action to be taken beyond the mere cancellation of sport. Perhaps. It is barely consolation.

It is now plain that England were always going to play in Zimbabwe this winter. The hand-wringing knee-jerks of the Fourth Estate - belated this time but predictable as soon as 13 of its members looked like being refused entry to cover the one-day series - were never likely to make a difference. The opprobrium heaped on the England and Wales Cricket Board and the International Cricket Council, and the polls declaring that 98 per cent of the British population were against the tour were so much hot air.

Nobody comes well out of the saga (politicians in all countries least of all) but it can be fairly assumed that unity of cricket and commercial imperatives were placed in the pecking order ahead of Zimbabwe's suffering. England had no choice but to make the tour. Or rather, they took a huge gamble on giving themselves no choice. The genesis of their risk was in the spring of 2002 and in essence their forlorn, naïve punt was that the regime of Robert Mugabe would have vanished by now.

It was then that David Morgan, three months into his chairmanship of the ECB, went to Zimbabwe and made a promise he eventually had to keep. In the wake of the fiasco of England's cancelled World Cup tie in Harare that February, it was a serious prospect that Zimbabwe would withdraw from their tour of England that summer.

The Zimbabwe Cricket Union had been deeply hurt by England's procrastination that finally led to their withdrawal from the World Cup match, officially because of fears for the players' safety. Although Zimbabwe's need to play cricket anywhere might have prevailed over any other argument, the ECB decided they could not afford to take a chance. They had their commercial backers, not least their new television partners, Channel 4, to consider. Empty stadiums, empty television screens, probable compensation to the ZCU - mammon - loomed.

In return for Zimbabwe's willingness to tour England, Morgan gave an undertaking that England would in return uphold their commitment, under the ICC's Future Tours Programme, to go to Zimbabwe in the early winter of 2004. How distant that must have seemed then. Incidentally, few of last week's soul searchers pointed out then how crass it was to be entertaining the sporting representatives of a tyrannical regime.

After Zimbabwe kept their part of the bargain, England began to prevaricate. Moral issues, handily concealed, crept into their thinking, culminating in the well-intentioned Des Wilson paper, long on emotion, short on facts and failing to recognise the broad church that is the ICC. The ICC's fury knew no bounds. This was not just the ICC as represented by their full-time officials at Lord's, but the ICC comprising the nine other full member nations. England were reneging on a pledge which Morgan readily conceded he had made. Coming on the back of the World Cup shenanigans, it was too much for the ICC to bear.

During the latest events it has been suggested that England should have stood up to the ICC and that because of their obvious commercial and financial muscle they would have won the day. But at that point the ICC's other countries were ready and willing to hang England out to dry. Make no mistake, they would have imposed financial penalties - $2 million would have been payable to the ZCU for failing to make the tour. Suspension would have been much less likely.

Perhaps wrongly but none the less unanimously, the ICC discussed and rejected the issue of morals guiding tours in 2002. Earlier this year, the topic was again on the agenda. It was fully expected that England would speak to it but they declined, partly because they recognised they were not flavour of the month. At that same meeting in Auckland, England, along with all the other Test nations, signed up formally to the Future Tours Programme. They had lost their last chance - until last Tuesday.

Many of the commentators have forgotten that the ICC executive, shameless though it can appear to be, is charged with ensuring that members adhere to policy, not with shaping it. The ICC are also, it is possible to discern, getting a mite fed up with Zimbabwe.

Personally, Morgan almost certainly did not want his players anywhere near Zimbabwe. The fact that he has always refused to comment when the question has been put to him directly suggests as much. He has been accused of being emollient and supine (and much worse) in the last week and it is probably true. He followed a maverick chairman in Lord MacLaurin and made it clear he would stand for calm and reason.

In an exclusive interview with this paper in April, Morgan revealed that England would be going to Zimbabwe, was certain the ECB should not take a moral or political stance and realised he would have to withstand a probable public furore. In the event, the public and press had been fairly quiet (almost, it could be said, supine) until the past few days.

But the fact is that England could be a strong and irresistible voice in the ICC, who are never less than astonished by England's leadership. They do not have to be bullies to be so, but to state their position plainly and clearly. They messed up the World Cup and they messed up hugely by making the wrong call after it.

Finally, Morgan, who had seen off Tim Lamb - the former chief executive of the ECB, forced out largely because of Zimbabwe - messed up again last week when the Zimbabwean government issued its ban on reporters and opened a door that the ICC briefly put a wedge under.

The appalling upshot is that England are doing what they plainly should not be doing: playing against Zimbabwe.