Cricket's Bible Wisden ripped the International Cricket Council apart, criticising many of its policies, including its handling of the Zimbabwe crisis during the World Cup, saying it had "heaped shame on the game".

Blasting ICC for being "at their worst" for much of the past year, Wisden, published on Wednesday, said "blundering ICC bosses ignored public opinion and turned a blind eye to human rights abuse, ordering Andy Flower and Henry Olonga to lay down their acclaimed black armbands".

Editor Tim de Lisle accused ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed of "reacting like a new father who hears someone criticising his baby" when England's aborted tie in Harare should have been switched to South Africa.

And while ICC failed to address basic issues, like polite protesters being thrown in jail at the Zimbabwe-Australia tie in Bulawayo, fans at the World Cup were frisked to make sure they did not upset sponsors by carrying the wrong brand of soft drink.

"Just when cricket has become more fun to watch, its bosses have made it harder to follow. For much of the past year, the ICC were at their worst, which is saying something," De Lisle wrote.

"Their Champions Trophy did not produce a champion. Their Test championship produced the wrong one (South Africa). Their new one-day championship was so arcane that it went virtually unnoticed. Their World Cup consisted of more than 50 matches but hardly any real contests.

"And they adopted a stance on Zimbabwe that shamed the game.

"Before the tournament, Nasser Hussain grasped that the England players could hardly represent their country if their country did not want them to go, and that they would be making a political statement whether they went to Zimbabwe or not," de Lisle wrote.

"Speed couldn't see it, and the ICC ended up doing something that ought to have been impossible: washing their hands at the same time as burying their heads in the hands."

Wisden also criticised Australian skipper Ricky Ponting for not adopting a stand on the Zimbabwe issue.

"Not that the administrators were alone in ducking the issue. Ricky Ponting [the Australian skipper] played a great captain's innings in the final, but he hadn't shown much leadership in Bulawayo, where he went with a shrug of the shoulders," de Lisle wrote.

"Bulawayo was the only moment where the Australians missed Steve Waugh. A man who had founded a ward for the daughters of lepers in Kolkata would have been able to see beyond the boundary.

"Hussain and his players did better than most. They at least managed to raise the moral issue. But then, out of nowhere, came two black armbands, won by Olonga and Flower.

"They breathed life back into the game's battered spirit. And the ICC were so blind to this that they asked for the armbands to be taken off," he said.