Zimbabwe's chances of retaining the six matches they are due to host in next year's cricket World Cup are to come under scrutiny in November when a delegation from the International Cricket Council (ICC) is to tour the country to see how safe the situation is. A report in London's Daily Mail today said that both ICC Malcolms – president Gray and chief executive Speed - believe the games should be played in Zimbabwe, despite the acceleration in president Robert Mugabe's expulsion of white farmers from their land. However, they admitted they would be powerless to enforce that if individual governments said they would not allow their team to play there.

"We believe cricket should be played whenever an invitation has been extended," Gray said. "Providing the cricketing conditions at each ground, the finance and the security of the players are all safeguarded. But it is not up to ICC and cricket administrators to make political judgments. It is up to individual governments whether they wish to impose sanctions."

While ICC are increasingly desperate to stop the international calendar being decimated by political unrest, their head-in-the-sand attitude is unforgivable. If Gray's comments had been applied to the apartheid régime at its most perfidious, then tours of South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s would have gone ahead regardless. His remark that it is not for ICC to make political judgments reeks of the "sport and politics shouldn't mix" argument of those who advocated full sporting links with South Africa during their isolation.

While ICC officials might find Harare quite welcoming - the Zimbabweans are among the most genial people in Africa - it is astounding that they seem prepared to ignore the political corruption which has left a once-prosperous country broke and starving. Even if they chose to overlook the repossessions of white farms as a little local difficulty, the lack of food and fuel, the reports of widespread electoral corruption and rumours of targeted starvation of those who oppose Mugabe cannot be ignored.

Morgan Tsvangirai, the president of the Movement for Democratic Change, Zimbabwe's only viable opposition, recently said: "Entire rural communities are being denied food and subjected to an incessant regime of political violence, because they steadfastly refuse to submit to Mugabe's tyranny. The run-up to the local government elections has seen violence and denial of food relief as the most lethal weapons in the regime's bid to snuff out any remaining vestiges of the people's democratic rights." And still ICC says that there is no reason that matches shouldn't take place.

The fact that last month Heath Streak, Zimbabwe's captain, was pictured in sitting on his father's verandah with a gun in his hand after the authorities tried to seize his family farm should also ring alarm bells. ICC are probably reassured that none of the players has spoken out about the situation affecting their country. They are hardly in a position to. Mugabe is patron of the ZCU, and the players are bound by their contracts not to speak out against the ZCU and, therefore, Mugabe. Most of them also have families still in Zimbabwe.

ICC's main role is to run world cricket, but they have other responsibilities. Just occasionally they have to view the bigger picture. This is one of those instances.

© Wisden CricInfo Ltd