India And Pakistan’s Tense Standoff Threatens To Derail This Year’s Cricket World Cup

Pakistan and India is cricket’s best rivalry, perhaps the most passionate in all of sports, conjuring record broadcast ratings and financial windfalls on the rare occasions they meet on the field.

Whenever they do play, like most recently during the unforgettable contest at last year’s T20 World Cup in front of 90,000 fans in Melbourne amid surreal scenes, it’s a chance for diplomacy in a volatile part of the world.

The neighboring foes, however, sadly don’t play each other in bilaterals anymore due to political differences with contests between India and Pakistan confined to official International Cricket Council events.

So strained are the relations that Pakistani players are not even allowed to play in the lucrative Indian Premier League in an injustice that does not appear set to be reversed any time soon.

Everyone seemingly shrugs their shoulders even though the toxicity between these two cricket-crazed countries, who amount for around 20% of the world’s population, is a real travesty for a sport which gets caught up in so much mudslinging between Pakistan and India.

The bickering has reared for some time over September’s six-team Asia Cup in Pakistan, who will be hosting their first major ICC event since international cricket resumed in the country mid last decade after a period of exile following a terrorist attack on Sri Lanka’s team bus in 2009.

India have indicated they will not travel to Pakistan due to its government’s wishes, citing ongoing diplomatic tensions and security concerns. This has started a squabble with the Pakistan Cricket Board proposing that India plays its Asia Cup matches in the U.A.E.

But only if this so-called “hybrid model” is reciprocated for them at the subsequent World Cup in India in October. “If India now wants to have a neutral venue and accepts the hybrid model, then we’ll use the same hybrid model in the World Cup,” PCB boss Najam Sethi told The Indian Express.

“India should not be looking at a situation where we end up boycotting the Asia Cup and also the World Cup, and then India ends up boycotting the Champions Trophy (which Pakistan hosts in 2025). That will be a huge mess.

“Every major country has toured Pakistan in the last few years. Why can’t the Indian cricket team come to Pakistan?”

It would be a financial disaster if boycotts ensue with so much at stake financially. “The entire monetization of the broadcast (Asia Cup) is based on this one match between India and Pakistan,” Asian Cricket Council head of commercial and events Prabhakaran Thanraj told me last year.

To milk this money-spinner of a contest, ensuring important funds for grassroots projects in the region, India and Pakistan play each other two times with the potential of a third if they both qualify for the final.

“The men’s Asia Cup is where almost all the funds come from for the ACC. Monetization will help put funds back into cricket,” Thanraj said.

It heightens the importance of Pakistan and India finding some type of middle ground. “It needs to be sorted. The only thing that matters is the safety and security of the players,” former PCB boss and ex-ICC president Ehsan Mani recently told me.

“I used to say to (former India cricket boss) Sourav Ganguly that ‘things aren’t good between the countries, but it’s political’. When things change, one of the things will be to restart cricket again (between the countries).

“You don’t shut the door.”

Cooler heads are hoped to prevail during discussions between the boards at ACC meetings this month in a desperate bid for a resolution.