England will cancel its tour of Zimbabwe unless a "significant number" of banned journalists are admitted to cover the matches, England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) chairman David Morgan said on Thursday.

Morgan is in Harare trying to persuade Zimbabwe authorities to lift the ban on 13 journalists refused accreditation to cover the five-match tour, which is due to start on Friday.

"We certainly will not proceed with the tour unless a significant number of the 13 are accredited," Morgan told BBC radio from Harare.

"In the event of some not being accredited we would need to know the reasons why before bringing the cricketers here to play cricket."

However, a Zimbabwe government spokesman said it had the right to vet journalists, saying the media organisations whose reporters it had banned were hostile to President Robert Mugabe and were seeking to play political games.

"They are people who have been consistently hostile," Mugabe's spokesman George Charamba told the BBC's African service.

"Bona fide media organisations in the UK have been cleared, but those that are political have not. This is a game of cricket, not politics," Charamba said.

Relations between Zimbabwe and its former colonial ruler Britain have hit rock bottom since Mugabe launched a campaign of chaotic and often violent seizures of land from white farmers, many of whom held dual British citizenship.

Britain, accusing Mugabe of rigging his 2002 re-election, has spearheaded international sanctions against Mugabe, who in return accuses London of masterminding a campaign of economic sabotage and negative media coverage as the once prosperous Zimbabwean economy faces its worst crisis since independence.

ENGLAND WAIT

While officials worked to end the deadlock over media access, the England team were holed up in a hotel complex near Johannesburg airport after cancelling plans to fly to Harare late on Wednesday.

Morgan and the ECB's director of operations, John Carr, were in Harare where they were meeting with the chairman of Zimbabwe Cricket, Peter Chingoka, after Carr cancelled a planned trip to meet the England squad in Johannesburg on Thursday morning.

"It was decided that it would be more effective for the whole process if John Carr stayed in Harare," England team spokesman said. "However John and David will be in contact with the squad."

Walpole said Morgan had spoken to International Cricket Council (ICC) President Ehsan Mani by phone on Thursday morning.

England have asked the ICC, cricket's governing body, for a ruling on whether the media ban gives grounds for the ECB to cancel the tour.

Under the ICC's Future Tours Programme, tours can only be cancelled on the advice of a government or because of overriding security and safety worries.

The ECB could risk a $2 million fine and suspension from the international game if England pull out for any other reason.

Last year, England pulled out of a World Cup one-day match in Zimbabwe, citing security concerns.

The majority of British media organisations hoping to cover the tour, including the BBC, were told on Tuesday they had been denied accreditation by the Harare government.

Applications by other organisations including Reuters appeared to have been successful.

The British government called in a senior Zimbabwe diplomat on Wednesday to express its "deep concern" about the media ban which the Foreign Office said was "further evidence of its (the Harare government's) refusal to allow the international and domestic media to operate freely in Zimbabwe".

South Africa, which has been reluctant to take a tough line with its northern neighbour Zimbabwe over reports of human rights and other abuses, called for the tour to go ahead.

Sports ministry spokesman Bongani Majola said South Africa's United Cricket Board (UCB) is opposed to a ban.

"We support the UCB's position that the tour must go on, especially in the light of the fact that there are no issues of security and safety in relation to the players," Majola said.

(Additional reporting by Cris Chinaka in Harare)