ICC draws ‘neatly arranged’ for IND vs PAK fixtures- Atherton:Ex-England captain calls out scheduling of world events, says ‘Cricket now proxy for propaganda’

An India vs Pakistan cricket match is often dubbed as the mother of all contests. Fans often wait to see the two rivals face off on the cricket field. However, the two teams do not play each other in bilateral cricket and meet only at International Cricket Council (ICC) meetings. Amid this, former England captain Michael Atherton has called for a complete halt to the India vs Pakistan matches even in world events, alleging that the draws are “neatly arranged” to ensure that the two teams at least in the group stage. Atherton’s allegations do not come out of nowhere. “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,” the 57-year-old wrote in his column for The Times. “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. He reckoned that a cricket match between the South Asian rivals has become a “proxy for broader tensions and propaganda”, citing the Asia Cup “antics” where the Indian team refused to shake hands with Pakistani players and were even unwilling to collect the trophy from Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) head Mohsin Naqvi who walked away with the silverware after Men in Blue did not take take it from him. Pakistan-backed terrorists claimed lives of 26 Indians in Pahalgam For the unversed, there is a heightened cross-border tension between India and Pakistan after the Pahalgam terror attack where 26 Indians were shot to death by Pakistan-backed terrorists leading to Operation Sindoor launched by India in retaliation. “Despite its (India vs Pakistan matches) 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. “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 argued that it is the right time to end the “tacitly supported arrangement” that ensures that the arch-rivals meet at least once in ICC events. Even in Asia Cup, a tournament under the supervision of the Asian Cricket Council (ACC), the fixtures were chalked out in a way that allowed India-Pakistan to meet each other on three back-to-back Sundays. “If cricket was once the vehicle for diplomacy, it is now, clearly, a proxy for broader tensions and for propaganda. There is little justification, in any case, for a serious sport to arrange tournament fixtures to suit its economic needs and now that the rivalry is being exploited in other ways, there is even less justification for it. “For the next broadcast rights cycle, the fixture draw before ICC events should be transparent and if the two teams do not meet every time, so be it,” Atherton said. No bilateral series between India and Pakistan and 2012-13 India and Pakistan last played a bilateral cricket series in 2012-13 when Pakistan toured India for a T20I and an ODI series. In the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack, the Indian government has put a blanket ban on bilateral sports between the two countries even at neutral venues but said that participation in multi-nation tournaments will continue to be allowed to ensure that it sticks to the Olympic Charter.​​​​​​ Atherton, however, also pointed out that the two cricket-frenzy nations are drawn in the same group to ensure good advertising revenue. “This arrangement has been tacitly supported within the game for a number of reasons. The most obvious is the inability of both teams, because of political tensions, to meet outside ICC events. “Cricket on each other’s territory was once the avenue through which both countries might talk, but gradually silence has descended. “ICC events are the only occasions, at present, when the fixture can go ahead and now this must be on neutral territory too the cause of much debate in the most recent Champions Trophy, when India parked themselves in Dubai for an entire tournament nominally hosted by Pakistan,” he pointed out.