In the Observer, Kevin Mitchell writes: "What matters to the ICC is they have been saved from making a judgment call (which they would have fudged by suspending Zimbabwe temporarily because 'they are not good enough'), and England don't lose their big-money gig. While England and South Africa suspended cricket relations with Zimbabwe last week, the ICC, their strings pulled by the Asian bloc, are adamant Zimbabwe will keep full membership and funding. All that has been saved is a tournament. Nothing else changes."
"The stand taken by the ICC to save the savage Mugabe’s Zimbabwe from being expelled from the international cricketing fraternity is something that may be easy to understand and explain. But, is it desirable and justified? And shouldn’t India, which never loses an opportunity to flex its financial clout to ride roughshod over many cricketing decisions, be the last country to say politics and sport never go together?" asks Pradeep Magazine in the Hindustan Times.
"England and India are engaged in a struggle for power and influence which will determine the direction of the sport. They are fighting over its soul," writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent on Sunday.
To observe this titanic clash unfold at the International Cricket Council's annual meeting was both enthralling and disturbing. Two bulls locked horns, suddenly aware of their own strength and unprepared to cede ground. The primary tussle, a narrow win in a bowl-out for England, concerned Zimbabwe. England wanted them out, India wanted them in: they are out of next year's World Twenty20 in England but still in (for now) the ICC.
