Yorkshire chief executive Colin Graves has slammed the Government for putting the England and Wales Cricket Board in the position of having to decide that England's World Cup match in Zimbabwe next month will go ahead, despite heated opposition and protests.

Graves said that although his personal view was that England should not be playing in Zimbabwe, he fully understood why the ECB had stated yesterday that the game would go on.

"The ECB have been put in an unenviable position because this should have been a political decision and not a sporting one," he said.

"The Board just could not afford to pull out of the match and face a massive compensation claim which the Government are not prepared to meet.

"The whole thing has been very badly handled by the International Cricket Council and the Government.

"Both of them should have sorted the situation out six to 12 months ago instead of it now being left to the ECB to make a decision.

"The ECB should never have been put in this position and with the Government not being prepared to pay any compensation the Board had no realistic option but to go ahead with the game.

"From a cricket finance point of view they had no other choice."

Yorkshire will have three players in England's World Cup squad in Michael Vaughan, Matthew Hoggard and Craig White, provided White proves he has fully recovered from the side strain which kept him out of the fifth and final Test in Australia.

Apart from the Harare match, all of England's other games will be in South Africa.

English cricket chief David Morgan today confirmed that the 15-strong World Cup party have backed the decision to play in Zimbabwe.

Morgan, the recently-appointed chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, has been in constant talks with captain Nasser Hussain and coach Duncan Fletcher about the contentious issue.

The ECB's management board decided yesterday, while the players slept in Adelaide, that the February 13 fixture in Harare should go ahead.

The players woke to the news this morning and Morgan has canvassed their views via Hussain and Fletcher, who knows the ECB head well from their time together at Glamorgan.

Said Morgan: "We should continue to attempt to fulfil commitments to the World Cup by playing in Harare."

Updated: 12:28 Wednesday, January 15, 2003