COUNTY bosses including Worcestershire chief executive Mark Newton have rejected pressure from Zimbabwe and put their faith in the England and Wales Cricket Board to make the right decision about the national team's controversial winter tour.

Zimbabwe Cricket Union President Peter Chingoka maintains he sent an e-mail to all the counties outlining why October's tour should go ahead.

However, many of them claim not to have received the e-mail and are expected to back the judgement of the ECB, who will discuss a report on whether to tour troubled countries at tomorrow's Management Board meeting at Lord's.

"The position is very straightforward," explained Newton. "The counties have allowed the Management Board to make that decision for us because we believe they are the best qualified to do that.

"You can always put pressure on people if you want to, but that doesn't mean they will necessarily respond to it and I fail to see how sending an e-mail like this is going to help Zimbabwe cricket at all."

Newton, one of many county chief executives who had to make cut-backs as a result of last year's World Cup boycott, believes the financial impact of that decision was eased by the success of the Twenty20 Cup in its debut season.

"The success of the Twenty20, particularly those counties who embraced it, helped enormously. It did even better than even I thought it would and I am a major optimist," he added.