A LITTLE more than 18 months ago, I was a member of an England team that was left to agonise over whether they should go to Zimbabwe to play a World Cup match and well remember being assured that they would never have to go through that kind of thing again.

That assurance seemed pretty hollow yesterday when Michael Vaughan and his side encountered exactly the same kind of thing before finally deciding to take a different decision from Nasser Hussain and the rest of us in that side and go ahead with the one-day international series.

I know exactly what they were going through. The World Cup is the biggest one-day tournament a cricketer can play in and I had gone to South Africa purely concentrating on preparing for that. Instead, we had three days of meetings, which was the last thing any sportsman needs before an important tournament.

We were told this, we were told that, we were lied to — I can say that, now that I am no longer playing — and it was then that Hussain was very good at taking it upon himself to confront the whole problem of Zimbabwe with the support of his team.

We felt very isolated. The ICC just said that we were going and gave us no help at all. The British Government basically said that they would like us not to go, but that was the end of their involvement. The ECB was more concerned about the financial penalties and how they would ruin the game back home. While I could understand that to some extent, I was left wondering: “What about the 14 players and the coaching staff who will have to go to Zimbabwe? What will everyone think of them?” We were left out on our own but fortunately Richard Bevan, the Professional Cricketers’ Association and their legal team gave us all the support we needed.

We all just wanted to go and beat Zimbabwe and take the four points and progress to the Super Six stage, but the moral side of it said that there was no way we could go.

If we had gone, there would have been demonstrations and England playing Zimbabwe would have resulted in people dying, if not at the ground then two miles down the road because of the way Robert Mugabe and his henchmen handle these things.

On top of that, we had death threats from the Sons and Daughters of Zimbabwe and while cricketers might be trained in how to play a forward defensive shot or bowl an outswinger, they are not trained to deal with threats like those.

It was farcical. All Ali Bacher and his organising committee were concerned about was running a smooth tournament because they wanted to show the world that they could stage the football World Cup in 2010.

Now, 18 months on, I find it staggering that nothing has been learnt. Zimbabwe had just been put on the back burner. We had a great tour of West Indies, we played very good cricket all summer and here we are going to Zimbabwe with the same questions being asked that were asked before the World Cup. I sat in those meetings with some of the players who will be on the plane to Harare today and they were adamant that they would not go to Zimbabwe.

But, as Vaughan put it, if he does not go, some other bloke will have to captain England in a very difficult situation. He has my sympathy.