By Kavita Mistry 
London: Alleging that draws have been “neatly arranged” to ensure India-Pakistan clashes in ICC tournaments for “economic needs”, former England captain Michael Atherton has called for a complete halt to cricket between the two bitter rivals as sport has become a “proxy for broader tensions and propaganda”.
In a scathing column for ‘The Times’, Atherton cited the recent “antics” at the Asia Cup where the Indian team refused to shake hands with Pakistani players and the Asian Cricket Council’s Pakistani head Mohsin Naqvi walked away with the winner’s trophy after the Indians refused to accept it from him.
“India and Pakistan have played each other in the group stage of every ICC event since 2013, which includes three 50-over World Cups, five T20 World Cups and three Champions Trophy,” Atherton said.
“That is regardless of whether the initial stage has been a single round robin – part of the motivation for which is the inevitability of an India versus Pakistan fixture – or multi-group, when the draws have been neatly arranged to ensure the fixture goes ahead,” he added.
The tensions between the two countries are at an all-time high after the Pahalgam terror attack in which 26 Indians were gunned down by Pakistan-backed terrorists leading to military action by India in May.
“Despite its scarcity (maybe, in part, because of its scarcity) it is a fixture that carries huge economic clout, one of the main reasons why the broadcast rights for ICC tournaments are worth so much — roughly USD 3 billion for the most recent rights cycle 2023-27,” Atherton wrote in The Times, London.
“Due to the relative decline in the value of bilateral matches, ICC events have grown in frequency and importance, and so the India and Pakistan fixture is crucial to the balance sheets of those who would not otherwise have any skin in the game,” he said.
Atherton said time is now right to end the “tacitly supported arrangement” of ensuring that the two arch-foes clash at least once in ICC events. At the recent Asia Cup, the draw and schedule was such that the two sides faced each other every Sunday of the three-week tournament.