MOST Test-match nations think that it is absolutely fine to send a touring team to Zimbabwe. One does not. The majority are so convinced that they are right that they will take drastic sanctions against the One.

If the lone nation refuses to send a team to Zimbabwe, counter-measures designed to bankrupt the cricketing organisation of the One are likely. That is the threat, and the militant mood of the majority makes it serious.

The One, of course, is England, the former ruler. The majority is everybody else: the formerly ruled — with the honourable exception of New Zealand. The International Cricket Council (ICC), led in this instance by Australia in a stunning “et tu Digger” coup, has made a ruling that forbids a country to pull out of any tour for reasons other than safety of players or direct government intervention.

The first and most obvious aspect of this ruling is that it penalises cricketing nations that have the misfortune to operate in a democracy. The UK Government will not instruct the England and Wales Cricket Board to call off a tour to Zimbabwe: that is not how democracies work.

The ethical stance of the ICC, then, can be understood in either of two ways: 1) that there is no reason to take a moral stance against the Government of Zimbabwe, or 2) that cricket has no business making moral stances.

Last Friday, 17 children, aged 8 to 17, were returning from a football match to Charleswood Farm, in Zimbabwe. Soldiers forced them to assault each other, then gave them a beating. The incident was reported to the police. No arrests have been made.

Less than a fortnight ago, four police officers forced their way into the house of a woman on Charleswood Farm. She was handcuffed and beaten. Three men left, the fourth stayed and raped her. The rape was reported and the officer arrested. No action was taken against the other three.

In February, three women and two men working on Charleswood Farm were abducted by “war veterans”, who beat them up and set dogs on them. Violet Ngwenya was taken to another room and repeatedly raped. The five were released the next day and they reported the attacks to the police. No arrests have been made.

Two days after this, Shemi Chimbarara was shot and killed on Charleswood Farm, reportedly when soldiers opened fire on a group of farm workers. Another, John Kaitano, was shot in a leg. No one has been arrested.

Why so many dreadful things on the one farm? Charleswood Farm is owned by the opposition MP for Chimanimani, Roy Bennett. The tale is a small example — facts from Amnesty International — of the political morality that has just won a ringing endorsement from the ICC.

My old friend, Matthew Engel, writing his Editor’s Notes for Wisden 2004, said: “It is true that it is all too easy to get on a high horse about this. I could have a decent stab at writing a powerful newspaper column arguing the moral case against playing cricket in any place you care to name, however innocuous it might seem. But, somewhere in the dust, by no means easy to find, is a line that no decent human being should cross. And I believe that the wretched tyranny that is Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe is now across that line and that no team should tour there.”

Is there any person in the world prepared to explain to the world that the Government of Zimbabwe is something that deserves the support of decent human beings? Other than Robert Mugabe? So: ethical argument No 1 does not work. That leaves us with the argument that cricket is above politics and, for that matter, morality.

How can cricket, of all sports, allow such a thought to enter its head? Cricket is the game that did more than anything else to bring down apartheid — yet South Africa, of all nations, is opposing moral sanctions against Zimbabwe.

John Arlott, the great liberal cricket commentator, once said: “Say that cricket has nothing to do with politics and you say that cricket has nothing to do with life.”

The contention that the Government of Zimbabwe is worthy of cricket’s support is unacceptable; the contention that cricket should not concern itself with politics is impossible. In other words, there are only two possible ethical arguments for the ICC’s support of Zimbabwe and neither stands up.

We are forced, then, to come to terms with the stance of the majority having nothing to do with ethics. Why, then, are the cricketing nations of the world so merrily lining up in support of a Government that beats children, rapes women and shoots farm workers for the crime of working on a farm? Inevitably, it comes down to the politics that the majority so monstrously pretend to be above. For them, this has been a heaven-sent opportunity to isolate England and to use the isolation for power-mongering. Cricket is in a period of transition. The centre of power, based on money, is shifting to the sub-continent and to India in particular, but all the nations can increase their own power at the expense of England. Or think they can. And even if they cannot, the chance to gang up on the old ruler is — as has been shown — utterly irresistible.

Commentators have eagerly leapt on the “arrogance” of England’s attempts to take a moral stance. Typical of the bloody Poms, isn’t it? All you have to do is rape someone or murder someone and there they are, looking down their bloody noses at you.

So, let’s step back just one minute. England’s stance against Zimbabwe has been used by the ICC majority as a way to threaten England, to score political points and to accelerate the shift of power away from the old mother country. That this involves moral support to rapists, torturers and murderers is not a matter of concern to the ICC. If it helps to destabilise England’s position in the cricketing world, it must be good. The suffering of Violet Ngwenya and the death of Shemi Chimbarara are good things because they allow the majority to pursue their politico-sporting ambitions.

Is it just me, or is that a little bit disgusting?