Tickets for next year's World Twenty20 Championship in England were almost sold out last night, but the future of the tournament hangs in the balance while the England and Wales Cricket Board and their Indian counterparts try to hammer out a compromise over the Zimbabwe crisis.
Just 24 hours after being hopeful of having Zimbabwe expelled from the International Cricket Council, the English delegation, led by ECB chairman Giles Clarke, were left clinging on to the hope that the African nation may be suspended temporarily on cricketing grounds.
Such an outcome would provide some succour for the ECB as it would remove them from the Twenty20 tournament, but the permanent spectre of Zimbabwe would remain on the horizon.
Peter Chingoka, the chairman of Zimbabwe Cricket, arrived yesterday with a retinue of lawyers ready to advise that moves to suspend them on political grounds would contravene the ICC's constitution.
As the day wore on the Zimbabwe camp became confident of also surviving attempts for their removal on cricketing grounds, arguing that it is less than a year since they beat Australia at the inaugural World Twenty20 Championship.
Their confidence was also built on Indian support. India's stance was described as "intransigent" by one source, who added that any decision on Zimbabwe's future remains "on a knife edge". The stakes are high.
In yesterday's Daily Telegraph, Andy Burnham, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, wrote that "it would not be right" for Zimbabwe to appear at the World Twenty20. Such a statement means that if Clarke fails to garner enough support today then the ICC would have to switch the event to a new venue and lose up to £7.5 million in ticket sales. In an added twist, the two match days proving difficult to sell are the ones involving Zimbabwe.
The political trading yesterday was intensive, with Sri Lanka agreeing a deal to tour England next year in place of Zimbabwe.
The ICC is once again shown to be a toothless, spineless, politically-driven organisation whose main preoccupation seems to be choosing the next sumptuous location for their pointless meetings. Continuous compromise to appease the Asian bloc will never address the fundamental issues that are bringing the reputation of the game into disrepute.
So it wasn't politics when South Africa was excluded then?
Cheats prosper, governments and lawyers decide who plays who, money is everything! It's not cricket anymore. The England and Wales Cricket Board should withdraw from the ICC and let the rest of the world get on with destroying the game.