Tour resumes as Zimbabwe lift ban

Simon Wilde of The Sunday Times, one of the banned journalists, waits for news in Johannesburg © Getty Images

The Zimbabwe government has lifted the ban on foreign journalists, clearing the way for England's tour to go ahead. The players held a meeting in their Johannesburg hotel to discuss the situation, decided to continue and will fly to Harare on Friday morning.

Although tomorrow's opening one-day international was cancelled, Andrew Walpole, the ECB's communications manager, said that the ECB were committed to playing a five-match series. That means that an extra game will need to be shoehorned in somewhere.

In a remarkable about-turn, the Zimbabwean authorities looked to deflect any suggestions that they had climbed down by stating that the 13 reporters had been victims of a delay rather than a ban. "Delays in clearing 13 of the 55 had been encountered because the journalists had supplied insufficient information," Jonathan Moyo, the information minister, told local radio. "Further inquiries have since been carried out and all journalists have been cleared for accreditation."

The ECB has confirmed that the 13 journalists would now be allowed entry, after its chairman David Morgan - who had been holding talks with officials from Zimbabwe Cricket - warned this morning that the tour would be scrapped unless "a significant number" were given accreditation. "We have been given no reason and that is what makes it so unacceptable," Morgan told reporters. He added that he wanted to know specific reasons that some reporters had been refused admission before England would be allowed to travel.

While the ECB's actions since the spring have been entirely driven by fears of incurring an ICC fine, Morgan indicated a belief that, were the tour to be cancelled, the ICC would not punish England.

The random nature of the list of those banned further undermined the Zimbabwe government's insistence that the decision was because they have political agendas. But George Charamba, secretary to Zimbabwe's information minister, stuck to the party line. "Bona fide media organisations in the UK have been cleared but those that are political have not," he said. "This is a game of cricket, not politics."

A tight-lipped Michael Vaughan leaves the airport on Wednesday © Getty Images

Meanwhile, England's players woke up this morning in the wrong hotel in the wrong country. While board officials attempted to negotiate their way out of the impasse, all the cricketers could do was mill around and wait. It was all depressingly similar to events during the World Cup in February 2003.

The last-minute cancellation of the scheduled flight to Harare last night caught the England squad, who were already at the airport holding talks with Richard Bevan, chief executive of the Professional Cricketers' Association, to decide whether to proceed, were left high and dry. They returned to their hotel stoney-faced and with the ECB insisting that the decision owed nothing to player power.