The ICC no longer has the moral authority to run the game. Given one final opportunity to lift decision-making out of the morass of self-interest, deceit and compromise into which it had fallen, it flunked the test. The outcome on Zimbabwe - self-censorship in return for the loot - was in many ways a triumph for Giles Clarke, the ECB's intelligent and forceful chairman, but it should signal the end for the ICC. Like flared trousers, string vests and the Bay City Rollers, what once seemed a good idea has had its day.

That it took the words of an ageing statesman to bring about a resolution on Zimbabwe was portrayed as a triumph. Here, it was said, was an organisation that can extract its head from the sand, listen to the outside world and see the broader picture.

No matter that Archbishop Desmond Tutu predated Nelson Mandela's belated criticism of Robert Mugabe's regime by months, years even; no matter that the ICC had evidence of financial malpractice and had forced out its previous chief executive, Malcolm Speed, who could no longer keep quiet about the issue. It had plenty of opportunity to act before Mandela's choice words.

In any case, the eventual resolution, described as a “win-win” situation by Ray Mali, the ICC's outgoing president, was a terrible fudge. It saved the World Twenty20 tournament, but a great deal more was lost in the process. Instead of decision-making in the best interests of the sport, there was shallow vote-counting, posturing and horse-trading. Not so much the longest suicide note in history, as Labour's 1983 manifesto was described, as the messiest.

Michael Holding, one of the good men of the game, has had enough. On hearing of the decision to change the result of the Test match at the Brit Oval in 2006 from a forfeited win for England over Pakistan to a draw, he resigned from the ICC cricket committee. On doing so, he revealed that not one member of the committee had shown any desire to change the result, yet changed it was. England decided to abstain from voting on the issue on the basis that they had been involved in the match, not that it prevented Pakistan from casting their vote. It is not too difficult to work out how these things work, especially because England hoped that Pakistan would side with them had the Zimbabwe issue gone to a vote. I'll scratch your back, if you'll scratch mine. It is no way to run a sport.

Not that this has come as a surprise. When the ICC came into being in its modern guise in 1989, it was an organisation whose time had come. Cricket could no longer be run as an adjunct of MCC in the interests of a minority of white countries; cricket had come too far and the shift in power to the East was too seismic. And there have been some triumphs along the way. The game has spread far and wide, it is on a sound financial footing - on Tuesday, the ICC announced an injection of $300million, about £152million, over seven years for the non-Test playing nations - and the standard of umpiring, as a result of the elite panel, has never been better.

But these triumphs have been swamped by the failures. The inability to get to grips with match-fixing before the cancer had spread and the subsequent reluctance to act on information post-Cronje for fear of unleashing some old ghosts. The World Cups in South Africa and the West Indies were no advertisement for a sport with global ambitions, being too long and, frankly, too dull. That the 2007 World Cup was described as a triumph merely highlighted how out of touch the ICC had become.

And so to this crisis of confidence. Speed wrote a confidential report to his board shortly before his enforced “gardening leave”, giving warning that the sport had become dysfunctional. Ehsan Mani, the ICC president from 2003 to 2006, called the handling of Speed's demotion “disgraceful” and cautioned of a “loss of credibility” if the organisation did not pull its act together.

Most worryingly, the players have lost faith. Before the annual conference of the Federation of International Cricketers' Associations this year, Ian Smith, the players' legal adviser, said: “The competence of the administrators is being called into question. It is time to look at whether the players themselves can do a better job. There is no loyalty towards the ICC. They've cocked up on every single policy issue.”

Not much of this failure of leadership is the fault of the executives, who carry a great deal of accountability without the power to change things. For no decision can be made without majority agreement among the constituent nations, who view each other with suspicion, align themselves generally along racial lines and are interested primarily in bolstering their own position.

It makes the job of Haroon Lorgat, the new ICC chief executive, impossible. Some months before Egon Zehnder, the headhunting firm employed by the ICC to find its new chief executive, made its recommendation, it asked Garry Kasparov, the chess grandmaster, for his thoughts on leadership. He said that the most important attribute is intuitive decision-making. When David Morgan, the former ECB chairman, was asked what he thought the most important quality should be, he said an ability to ensure the “continued unity among our diverse membership”. He was not looking for a leader but a nanny to keep warring factions at bay.

The time has come to disband the ICC as a decision-making body and let the paid executives run the show. Smith had it about right when he said: “You can't have the ICC board voting on every single issue out of self-interest. We want an independent executive accountable to its shareholders once a year at an AGM.” Any better ideas out there?

Paying audience deserves more respect

In the days when counties were more hierarchical, the Lancashire second XI had a poster pinned to the dressing-room door that read: “We are the mushrooms, kept in the dark and fed with bulls***.” It struck me, as 7,000 people waited in vain for any information at the Riverside in Chester-le-Street on Monday, that spectators are treated even less well by cricket authorities. During “Hairgate” at the Brit Oval two summers ago, they were the last to know what was going on, as were those who attended the farcical World Cup final in Barbados in April 2007. This week a Twenty20 Cup match was called off after its scheduled start time. Sure, television is important, but so are those who shell out their hard-earned cash and turn up. It is a complacent sport that treats its core audience in such disdainful fashion.

Wimbledon finalists didn't take refuge in bad light

Along with about a fifth of the population, I found myself engrossed in a tennis match on Sunday evening. As Rafael Nadal fell to the ground at the moment of victory against Roger Federer, I looked at my watch, which, as far as I could see in my unlit living room, indicated that it was well after 9. I then looked outside, which confirmed what a good job the light filters on modern cameras do in making the pictures for television seem artificially bright.

Of course, tennis balls are less dangerous than cricket balls, but a serve comes at a speed half as quick again as Dale Steyn, of South Africa, will bowl at Lord's against England and the players' reactions did not seem to suffer. Just a thought if you see an umpire checking his light meter during the first Test, which starts today.