Speed uneasy amid guns and roses

If Ali Bacher and Malcolm Speed came to Harare to check out security, they would have been happy men as they drove from the airport to the city centre yesterday. Riot police in full combat gear patrolled the main intersections while helicopters whirled overhead. They said they wanted protection and they certainly got it.

These are difficult times for Bacher, the chief executive of the World Cup organising committee, and his counterpart from the International Cricket Council. Tomorrow they will deliver their final verdict on the suitability of Zimbabwe to host World Cup matches amid pressure from England and Australia to shift them, and pressure to leave them alone from most of the rest of the ICC.

Recent violence has reopened the debate about security and perhaps provided the England and Wales Cricket Board with a possible means of escape from its current dilemma. But it will probably not be as easy as that.

Meanwhile the nagging backbeat of Indian players' refusal to sign their World Cup contracts grows louder. This may yet cause another confrontation.

In Sydney, the ECB chairman David Morgan met with the England players to discuss their concerns about the opening match in Harare on February 13. He is still confident that they will go, despite Nasser Hussain's revelations of "split consciences" among players.

"The players are concerned about how their action of playing in Zimbabwe is going to be perceived by the British public," Morgan said. "I don't think there is a single player who would support the regime and therefore I think they are all finding it quite difficult to come to terms with having to go."

In Harare, troops poured on to the streets yesterday morning in response to a call for a "stay away" - effectively an unofficial one-day strike - by the opposition National Constitutional Assembly, a coalition of student, trade union and church groups.

A police spokesman said the action was aimed at disrupting preparations for the World Cup but Lovemore Madhuku, the NCA chairman, scoffed at the notion of cricket being the target. "The suffering of the Zimbabwean people is more important than this game of wealthy folks," he said. "If the police use brutal force to disrupt our protests, and the crick eters get caught in the crossfire, it is not us but [President Robert] Mugabe's government who is to blame."

Meanwhile, Harare Country Club was hosting a World Cup warm-up match between a Zimbabwe XI and South Africa A. "Our land and family home is gone now," said a former Zimbabwe international watching the game. "I find it increasingly difficult to believe that the World Cup people are even thinking of carrying on here. It's not me that matters, it's the millions starving."

What was very clear among both spectators at the Country Club and others in Zimbabwean society at large - workers at the hotel in which World Cup teams will stay, taxi drivers, MPs and shop keepers - was that cricket is no longer a side issue but, despite the NCA's denials, has now become the issue.

Cricket has become the vehicle that protesters have chosen to make their point. Many spoke of organised plans to embarrass the event and the country's government when matches begin next month.

Should Bacher and Speed successfully negotiate the Zimbabwe hurdle, they still have to face the India issue when the ICC board talks tomorrow. The Indian players have refused to sign World Cup contracts that forbid them from participation in their endorsement deals with competitors of the four main tournament sponsors.

India's players earn much more from sponsorship than from playing, and are said to appear in 25% of advertising in India. Despite signing up to the ICC's conditions last March the Indian board last week returned the contracts signed, but with the contentious clauses effectively deleted.

The ICC's plan is to take the $9m (£5.5m) that India would earn from the tournament and place it in a trust pending any compensation claims from sponsors who feel they have not had value for money. Should compensation exceed that level, the Indian board would be required to cover it or face expulsion from the ICC.

If the Indian board rejects the compromise and fails to comply with the contracts, they could face expulsion from the tournament. "The compromise is an olive branch to the Indian board but it's very conceivable that if all measures are rejected they could be out of the tournament," said a source.

This dispute has also exposed ICC concerns about its contract with Global Cricket Corporation, the Rupert Murdoch-owned company that paid $550m (£350m) last year for the commercial rights to the 2003 and 2007 World Cups.

Since then the sports rights market has collapsed and the ICC is desperate to deny GCC cause for legal action or a reason to withdraw from the deal.

Bacher and Speed are due to leave Zimbabwe this afternoon after just 25 hours.