So let us talk not politics but cricket. After all, that is what Peter Chingoka and Ozias Bvute want, is it not? Those twin pillars of the crumbled edifice called Zimbabwe Cricket, who have presided over a most disgraceful decline while all the while enjoying the benefits that full-member status of the ICC brings, called upon the international cricket community this week to consider only cricketing matters when Zimbabwe's position at the high table is discussed. We shall grant them their wish.

Chingoka called the move to table a resolution on Zimbabwe as “unethical”, which is like being lectured on fidelity by a sex addict. He reminded Ray Mali, whose last act of a thoroughly undistinguished presidency this was, that the ICC has agreed in the past that “sport and politics, like oil and water, do not mix”. The thuggish Bvute, the man responsible for kicking Henry Olonga off the team bus after his black armband protest during the 2003 World Cup, bragged that the “so-called current worries” in Zimbabwe are an irrelevance to its cricketing status.

That delicious prefix “so-called” is all the evidence needed that oil and water does mix and that there is an all-too-close association between Zimbabwe Cricket and Robert Mugabe's ruling Zanu (PF) party, as outlined last week by Andy Burnham, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. “So-called”? Tell that to the family of Ben Freeth, the farmer whose horrors at the hands of Mugabe's henchmen The Times has chronicled in grim detail this week.

But back to the cricket. You would think that a full member of the ICC would need to have a functioning and competitive cricket team. Not necessarily world-beating, but functioning and competitive. But Zimbabwe, of their own accord, have not played a Test match since September 2005. In the past seven years the team have won one Test match. In 32 one-day internationals since August 2006 they have won only two, losing 28. The figures reflect the reality that the Zimbabwe cricket team are a bunch of schoolboys masquerading as an international side. Most of the good players have left.

As we have seen this past week, with Ireland thrashed by a world-record margin by New Zealand; one-day international status given to a match between Bermuda and Canada in King City, Ontario; and Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates involved in games in the Asia Cup with similar status, the ICC cares more about the push for globalisation and making money than upholding standards.

But while the ICC spreads the gospel far and wide, its members do not want much to do with Zimbabwe. England and South Africa have cut bilateral ties and India, Zimbabwe's greatest ally, pulled out of their most recent tour there on the ground that they could not be bothered.

And what of the next generation? In the most recent Under-19 World Cup, Zimbabwe won one match - against Malaysia - and finished twelfth out of 16 teams. They also failed to send a team to compete in the Clico under-15 international championship in the Caribbean. The official reason given for the absence was a visa problem, but no formal application for visas was submitted.

But surely, given the millions of dollars passed on by the ICC down the years, there is a competitive cricket structure within Zimbabwe? Some months ago Steven Price, a brave freelance journalist based in Harare, wrote a series of articles about the state of the game in Zimbabwe at national, club and school levels. Collectively, they presented a disturbing picture of a sport in a state of decay. Bvute, by the way, had tried to bully Cricinfo, the website, into revealing Price's whereabouts in 2005. “What has he got to be afraid of?” Bvute said when he did not get his way.

There was a picture of a club ground near Harare called Selous, with knee-high grass and derelict facilities, a club typical of many others that cannot afford tractors and mowers to cut the outfields. There is the odd club in Harare - well connected, of course, and therefore well funded - who thrive, but players from one of those clubs were sent home from national practice by Geoff Marsh, the former coach, for wearing Zanu (PF) T-shirts. In 2005-06, the Logan Cup, the premier first-class competition in Zimbabwe, was cancelled without notice and this year the Twenty20 competition was suspended with less than 24 hours' notice.

Some club matches in Matabeleland were cancelled this year because there were no cricket balls. Umpires are scarce, as is basic equipment. Grant Flower, the former Zimbabwe batsman, had this to say about domestic cricket: “I speak to players who pitch up at games and there are no umpires, they are struggling to find six stumps, some wicketkeepers don't have gloves and there are no lunches or teas provided and there is no diesel to fuel the tractors and mow the outfields.” No team, no structure, no hope.

So what has happened to the millions of dollars given to Zimbabwe Cricket by the ICC? If only we knew. On the ICC's website there is a mission statement of values, one of which, under the heading “Openness, honesty and integrity”, reads: “We work to the highest ethical standards. We do what we say we are going to do, in the way we say we are going to do it.” Presumably, because the ICC is simply an amalgam of its constituent parts, these constituent parts sign up to such mission statements, too.

But Zimbabwe Cricket has issued no accounts for public consumption since 2005. When the ICC became suspicious and held an internal inquiry, some of its findings were leaked. The leaks were damning. “It is clear that the accounts of Zimbabwe Cricket have been deliberately falsified to mask various illegal transactions. It may not be possible to rely on the authenticity of its balance sheet.”

On the back of this, an independent audit by KPMG was commissioned. Despite the ICC's mission statement, this audit has not been released and when the British Government asked for a copy it was refused. It has been reported that the KPMG audit noted “serious financial irregularities”.

A country serious about its cricket must have administrators who treat the sport with the respect it deserves. So we come back to Chingoka and Bvute, respectively the chairman and managing director of Zimbabwe Cricket, who have been instrumental in leading the organisation into this maelstrom of bullying, racism and decay. Any cricketer with the courage to speak out, as Tatenda Taibu, the former captain, did in 2005, is hounded out. Taibu left before returning two years later. In November 2007, life presidents of Zimbabwe Cricket were stripped of their positions so that they could not cause trouble at the annual meeting. A purge took place; hand-picked cronies from the provinces were unlikely to ask awkward questions.

Last week, Andy Flower, brother of Grant and the finest player that Zimbabwe has produced, was collared by journalists at the Brit Oval. He looked briefly at the ECB's media relations man, to check that he was not about to embarrass the organisation that employs him as a coach, and gave a withering verdict on Zimbabwe Cricket's administrators. “Peter Chingoka is part of Mugabe's despicable plan and the fact that he is allowed to prance around the ICC committee is embarrassing for the ICC.”