It is little more than a month before England are due to arrive in Zimbabwe to play five one-day internationals, but there has been little response by the England and Wales Cricket Board to growing calls that the tour should be scrapped. The latest demand for England to stay at home came from Richard Caborn, the Minister for Sport. The rapidly deteriorating political situation in Zimbabwe has been a talking-point in the media for weeks, and the announcement that the BBC, whose reporting of the violence has so angered Robert Mugabe, will be banned from covering the tour should have been the signal for the ECB to say enough is enough.

But so far they have given little indication that they are about to call off the trip. The official line remains that they are in consultation with the Zimbabwe Cricket Union and the Foreign Office, and that a decision will be made nearer the time.

The situation in Zimbabwe is unlike any other that a touring side has had to face. Not only is the political stability of the country far from certain but, crucially, there is serious doubt as to whether the authorities can, or indeed have any inclination to, guarantee the safety of the England party.

In circumstances such as this it is usual for the government of the country concerned to issue routine platitudes about there being nothing to fear. But Mugabe has stayed silent, and the police and the army have been openly encouraging much of the violence. This should have led the ECB to cancel the tour weeks ago.

The ruling Zanu-PF party have targeted the UK as the overseas villain of the piece, largely on colonial grounds. Mugabe himself has upped his anti-British rhetoric in recent days. An increasing number of the 40,000 British passport-holders are fleeing the country - all evidence that the situation is hardly safe for a sporting tour.

The last high-profile cancellation of internationals on safety grounds was when the Australians refused to travel to Sri Lanka during the 1996 World Cup. Colombo, where their games were scheduled, had just suffered a series of devastating attacks by Tamil separatists and, despite assurances from the Sri Lankan government, the Australians stayed away. Their actions won them few friends in Asia but the Australian Cricket Board put their players' safety ahead of political protocol.

In an era when English cricket looks to ape everything Australian, the ECB should do just that now. Martin Williamson is managing editor of Wisden.com.

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