ICC rejects England request to move game

England’s scheduled match against Zimbabwe in Harare next Thursday is still set to go ahead after the ICC’s Cricket World Cup technical committee declined a request for the game to be switched.

The England and Wales Cricket Board lodged a formal request on Tuesday to have the match moved and the six-man technical committee considered it today at a hearing in Cape Town today.

However, despite a lengthy submission of evidence by the ECB the committee decided that the situation in Zimbabwe had not sufficiently changed to warrant a change to the schedule.

The ECB were represented at the meeting by chief executive Tim Lamb, director of legal affairs Mark Roper-Drimie and solicitor Mark Gay.

The technical committee consisted of ICC executive chairman Malcolm Speed, Cricket World Cup executive director Dr Ali Bacher, IDI commercial manager Campbell Jamieson, Brian Basson of the United Cricket Board of South Africa and independent members Sunil Gavaskar and Michael Holding.