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MCC's committee won a thumping majority on the vote of confidence they sought at the club's special meeting at Lord's yesterday. The postal vote alone ensured their survival, with 5,736 in favour and only 1,345 against.

As the attendance was only 600, the issue was beyond doubt. But it is significant that votes cast at site were 25 fewer in favour than against - 47.9 per cent to 52.1 per cent.

The special meeting was called after the annual meeting, held on May 5, was adjourned when it had reached a stage of utter chaos. The president, Tony Lewis, said it was impossible to conduct the business of the day in such circumstances.

The issue central to that abandoned meeting and, indeed, the one held yesterday, was that MCC members were made to pay to watch the three World Cup matches staged at Lord's.

The bone of contention was not so much that the members' inalienable right to enter the ground free of charge was violated, but that financial arrangements with the International Cricket Council and the England and Wales Cricket Board, described as owners of the competition, were finalised without the membership being consulted.

An assurance that the committee would not in future act on such matters without the consent of the membership was given after an acrimonious annual meeting, at the Westminster Hall, in 1987. Lewis, in a letter accompanying the notice of yesterday's meeting, expressed the committee's apology for the breach.