England should keep the Champions Trophy, says ICC's president

Ehsan Mani, the president of the ICC, said today that he believed England should be allowed to stage the Champions Trophy in September as planned. There had been speculation, ahead of tomorrow's ICC meeting in New Zealand, that England's reluctance to tour Zimbabwe might lead to the tournament - which features all ten Test-playing nations, plus Kenya and the United States - being moved elsewhere.

But Mani said that his view was that the tournament should not be affected by any bilateral issues between England and Zimbabwe - no matter how serious they were. "Clearly there are potentially very serious issues that need to be resolved relating to England's scheduled tour of Zimbabwe," he said. "I believe that through the Board and the ICC's disputes-resolution process there are mechanisms in place for these bilateral concerns to be effectively dealt with.

"However, it is important that these genuine issues between two ICC members do not spill over and impact on broader issues that could affect all countries, such as the venue for the ICC Champions Trophy 2004."

He concluded: "Ultimately this decision is in the hands of the executive board, and I will be guided by the views of the directors - but I will put forward my view that we should be seeking to clearly separate these matters so that we avoid confusing bilateral issues with multilateral concerns."

By an ironic twist of fate England's first match in the Champions Trophy is scheduled to be against ... Zimbabwe.