In 1978, Geoffrey Moorhouse, the writer, chronicled a summer of cricket. He showed how it was impossible to experience an English summer without in some way coming into contact with the game, so he visited the great grounds and the village greens and he talked to the great players and to those who could only dream of such things. He recognised that cricket, challenged by Kerry Packer, was on the brink of change, but Moorhouse's feelings had not changed.

He called his book The Best Loved Game and, once read, it was impossible not to share the sentiments. Right now that is an epitaph the game does not deserve.

Wherever you look cricket is in a mess. On the field, the need for a stirring contest between equals has never been greater. In a one-day series in Zimbabwe, a Sri Lanka team way below their best were able to beat the hosts 5-0; Bangladesh recently succumbed to South Africa twice by an innings; New Zealand were blown away by Australia in Adelaide this week, their batsmen seemingly unacquainted with the kind of technique and courage needed to succeed at the highest level. Mismatch after mismatch and much of it the direct result of administrators who have confused milking a cash cow and spreading the game with protecting the integrity of the sport.

No wonder Twenty20 cricket is on the march. But it does so as a threat rather than an accomplice, because it is largely in the hands of the money-men who care little for tradition. And here, it is not only administrators - grasping, myopic and clueless - who are at fault; former players, eager not to miss out on this cash bonanza, are blinded by anyone offering a pot of gold and so legends of the game debase themselves and polish the boots of an American billionaire, while present players, encouraged by rapacious agents, flit about from franchise to franchise, tournament to tournament, misplacing notions of loyalty and contractual obligations along the way. In the midst of a one-day series in which they are getting thrashed, England players cannot help but bang the drum for the Indian Premier League (IPL).

Bombs go off in Mumbai and Islamabad, in places that cricketers know intimately, while violence escalates in Colombo, neutering at a stroke the region where cricket still exudes the kind of passion and joy Moorhouse described. Western cricketers, sadly, will take some persuading to go to such places now - after all, when has a security adviser ever played down risk? - raising the possibility of a split in the world game; a split within a split, if India misguidedly refuse to go to Pakistan next month.

If teams can be persuaded to play, it will be under the suffocating shadow of the kind of security normally reserved for presidents and royalty. Sirens blaring and with motorcades longer than an England tail, teams will travel around in the style of a tinpot Third World dictator.

“Take your PlayStations and your DVDs” was the advice given to this newspaper on Tuesday by a security adviser milking the situation for all it was worth, “because you will not be going out of your hotel of an evening.” If he had his way, you suspect body doubles, lookalikes and food tasters would need to be provided before he deemed it safe to go. Mind you, in Australia two winters ago a member of the England team was seen going to collect his laundry with a security guard in tow. Practise, play, room service; practise, play, room service. It is not much of a way to play cricket - not much of a way to live.

The cricket world is a small world, but wherever you look the picture is a disintegrating one. In Zimbabwe, a land of hyperinflation, food shortages and cholera, the ICC sends a fact-finding mission, as if the facts have not been staring it in the face for years. At least the presence of Arjuna Ranatunga, one of the few administrators prepared to speak his mind and stand his ground, gives cause for optimism. Why, for example, having received more than US$10 million (about £6.8 million) this year, has the national league in Zimbabwe been cancelled because of cash shortages? Why are hoteliers refusing to accept cheques from Zimbabwe Cricket (ZC)? Why is cricket being played there at all? Why are corrupt ZC administrators openly welcomed by the ICC?

Cricket in the West Indies is in terminal decline. The standard of regional cricket played there recently was described by seasoned commentators as the worst in living memory. The West Indies Cricket Board is cash-strapped, having just asked the ICC for an advance against future earnings, despite the recent World Cup that was supposed to put it on a sound financial footing. But there are expensive legal bills to pay after the fallout with Digicel and the promised monies out of the Stanford tournament have not been forthcoming.

Bangladesh have played 57 Test matches since admission eight years ago; they have lost 56 of them. Pakistan cannot find anyone to play. Sri Lanka's players put the IPL before a Test series for their country. We could go on and talk of the poverty-stricken state of Australian cricket, a situation so bad that it has been forced to forgo its independence and do India's bidding. Or similarly South Africa. The situation is clear enough.

Now, more than ever, the game needs something to cheer. Cricketers, unsurprisingly, are not given to thinking of intangible notions such as a wider responsibility to the game. It is enough to worry about whether your bat is coming down straight. But over the next few days in Abu Dhabi, as England's cricketers ponder their next move, they need to show some resolve and ignore the shrill voices who urge caution. Now, more than ever, it is important to be (and security experts will not like this) visible and, yes, maybe even take a tuk-tuk to a café in Madras (Chennai) rather than a tank.

The omens for a great series are not good. A two-match series is insufficient in itself and England will be short of practice (when did Andrew Strauss last pick up a bat in anger?), possibly without two of their most potent bowlers and probably in a poor frame of mind. But play they must and if they do, it is to be hoped that cricket lovers in Madras and Mohali turn out in their droves. Sport has a way of connecting with emotions and lifting the spirits.

And then, who knows, maybe a young England bowler out there as a replacement will find greatness within himself. Not many people, I should imagine, expected much of the skeletal Manchester United team in the aftermath of the Munich air disaster in 1958, but they got through to the FA Cup Final. Maybe England and India can find it in themselves to produce something stirring, and maybe the good folk of Madras and Mohali will respond. God knows, the best-loved game needs it.