All parties will be claiming success over the Zimbabwe issue after a peace secured privately in the dark, early hours of the morning. Engand have retained the ICC World Twenty20, Zimbabwe claim to have acted in the greater interest of the game, India preen themselves for their part in breaking the deadlock and the ICC says the cricket world remains one big, happy family.

Yes, there is some compromise. But Giles Clarke, the ECB chairman, deserves much credit for his tough stance, albeit one that was taken with the full weight of the British Government behind him. The decision to put tickets for the event on sale on Monday, anticipating the rush for seats that ensued, was a masterstroke. It told delegates who remember the empty grounds in the Caribbean for the World Cup last year that here was a tournament that would succeed.

Having spent two days tottering ever closer towards the precipice, opponents of Clarke were close enough to the edge by Thursday evening to be able to look down and see a drop that was too steep to contemplate the next, fatal step. It was not worth losing England to save Zimbabwe. Clarke was adamant that an ICC staging agreement and Government word that visas would be denied the Zimbabwe squad meant that the tournament had to go ahead without them.

He quietly believed (and Clarke is not, by nature, a quiet man) that India never had an option but to back down and that the only calculation was over the number of hours of discussion to pass before they draped an arm around the shoulder of their traditional allies and told them the plain truth. India have offered to help Zimbabwe Cricket with administrative matters by some way of compensation.

And so, for England, the issue that dogged David Morgan, Clarke's predecessor, through his reign as chairman has gone away until at least the 2011 World Cup, the earliest the sides can meet. But the supine ICC should be ashamed at continuing to give money to an organisation whose links with the Robert Mugabe regime were detailed forensically by Norman Arendse, the Cricket South Africa president. It is a disgrace that the ICC constitution does not allow Zimbabwe to be stood down on political grounds when cricket and politics are entwined in the country.

According to Morgan, who takes office as the ICC president today, "talk about the ICC being divided is, with respect, a mistake". He said this on the basis that Zimbabwe's decision to pull out and the establishment of an ICC sub-committee to look at the whole issue of cricket in the country was accepted unanimously this morning. The truth is that talks were long, heated and acrimonious.

Clarke's arrogant streak can be a weakness as much as a strength. He can alienate as much as influence. But, over the past few days, as personal insults were hurled at him from opponents, he never lost sight of the difference between right and wrong. He has given English cricket a leadership of which it can be proud.

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