Tour must be kept low-key - ECB

Mike Soper, the deputy chairman of the ECB, has said that the announcement by the ICC on Thursday that England had agreed to play Zimbabwe in a series of four or five one-day internationals had come "totally out of the blue", and has warned that the tour must be kept as low-key as possible.

"I know we're honour-bound to go but we haven't even discussed it, which worries me," Soper told BBC Sport. "My own view is that we keep it as short as possible, keep it low-key and, if at all possible, have our base in Johannesburg and fly in and fly out again. We shouldn't make a big thing of it. The last thing I want us to do is make it sound like a full tour.

"I think it would be appalling if we stay in Zimbabwe for whatever length of time it is," he added. "That would be awful. To actually, carte blanche, say we are going and everything is going to be normal, I can't agree with, because it isn't going to be normal."

The ECB has said that England players will have the right to opt out of the tour, as Stuart MacGill did when he refused to go to Zimbabwe with the Australian team in May.