More trouble for Mohammad Amir © AFP

Imran Khan has described it as a suicide attack but you might wonder if there is anything left worth destroying? When your cricket board spends most of its time firing off legal notices against its players, selectors, and the sport’s governing body the crisis is truly a drama. The Pakistan Cricket Board is an institution incapable of persuading anybody of its point of view, resorting to exercise its wishes by threat of legal action.

The PCB’s objection to the ICC’s plan to depoliticise national cricket boards is understandable. The PCB is an entirely political organisation whose patron is the president of the country, and whose chairman is a direct appointment of the president and a political associate. Above all, the current chairman’s position is weak. Ijaz Butt is abundantly disliked and his decision making has only brought ruin and ridicule. The only reason that he remains in charge is the patronage of President Zardari. Without politics, Butt would be out of office. The PCB is an important national institution and a prize that the ruling party would never voluntarily give away.

Hence this legal bullying is a desperate attempt to retain power. The ICC should march on regardless, depoliticising world cricket is far more important than the petty power games of Butt and his cricket board. Indeed, the ICC needs to take a much closer look at the workings of the PCB, just as closely as it seeks to examine Mohammad Amir’s sixty runs and four wickets in a division one Surrey Cricket League match.

Amir’s appearance for Addington 1743 is a potential violation of his ban for spot-fixing, which bars him from cricket or cricket-related activities for five years. Pakistan’s pace sensation is a misguided and gullible young man who deserves pity not scorn, but he will have to live with the consequences of naivety. But ICC’s rules should apply universally. While Amir is set to be punished further, his fellow miscreants, Salman Butt and Mohammad Asif, have become regular pundits on Pakistan television. How have the PCB and ICC allowed these cricket-related transgressions?

Pakistan television companies and producers may not have any qualms but supporters are still sickened to see these men commenting on a sport that they have defiled. Instead of blocking these appearances, the PCB has effectively endorsed them by allowing its officers to appear on the same programme. The PCB has belatedly suspended national selector Mohammad Ilyas after he shared a studio with Salman Butt, although the major reason for his suspension appears to be his dispute with Afridi.

Ijaz Butt appeared in the same programme as Salman Butt and Ilyas, and joined in the same discussion, although by telephone, yet there is no word of censure against the PCB Chairman. The administration of the PCB has been little better than amateur farce for several years but have its ethical values ever been so compromised, its political entanglements ever been so tight and damaging?

The PCB is in disrepute and Pakistan cricket is further crushed, barely able to sustain an assault by a pea-shooter let alone a suicide attacker. When the cricket board is in such crisis and its governance in ignorant disarray, the time might have come for the ICC to intervene? Only yesterday, Abdul Razzaq reminded the world of the dazzling abilities of Pakistan’s cricketers, but that river of mercurial talents is in danger of being dammed forever by the damned cricket board of Ijaz Butt.

To save Pakistan cricket and cricketers, the ICC must first save them from their own cricket board.

Follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/KamranAbbasi

Pakistan cricketers are not allowed to speak, tweet, or think any criticism of their cricket board for fear of their livelihoods © Associated Press

Governance of international cricket requires much broader skills than ability with ball and willow. But nobody bought a match ticket or sports subscription in the hope seeing an administrator make a well considered decision. Only 6% of a sample of international cricketers believes that the ICC board makes decisions in the best interests of the sport. That is a damning statistic. What’s more, a clear majority believe that decision-making is unfairly influenced by the BCCI.

India, Pakistan, and Zimbabwe cricketers don’t belong to the Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations, the organisation that conducted the survey, but Pakistan players, at the very least, might have plenty to say about the governance of their own cricket boards even before they got to the topic of the ICC.

Unfortunately, Pakistan cricketers are not allowed to speak, tweet, or think any criticism of their cricket board for fear of their livelihoods. The people who fill the coffers of the cricket board have become slaves to central contracts and must beg and borrow any favour.

Shahid Afridi might not be the most rational fellow, or the greatest captain or player in Pakistan’s history, but he is an asset to Pakistan cricket, a fact that the cricket board itself has acknowledged. But by challenging the board about his treatment, refusing to play under its current administration, and offering some robust critique of the way the board is run, Afridi has unleashed the full spiteful force of the PCB.

Pakistan’s recently celebrated World Cup captain faces charges of breaching the code of conduct and is being denied the right to play cricket in England - censures that carry the clumsy hallmark of Pakistan’s board chairman, Ijaz Butt.

It is hard to believe that Afridi is motivated by some high-minded principle but his stance echoes the frustration of the majority of Pakistan cricket lovers: the regime of Ijaz Butt has done immeasurable damage to Pakistan cricket, all other hardships aside, and driven it to the point of collapse. Afridi’s call for regime change at the Gaddafi Stadium chimes with the resentment that supporters of Pakistan cricket feel towards the current board and the chairman in particular.

The board’s decision to revoke its permission for Afridi’s participation in the English Twenty20 tournament is an abuse of power. It demonstrates a nasty, vindictive streak in the Gaddafi Stadium regime that has already harmed Younis Khan. The message that Butt is keen to send out is that if you mess with me, with whatever justification, I will stop you playing and kill off your career. What hope for Pakistan cricket when such a man runs the board like a dictator? What hope for Pakistan when this man is allowed to run such an important national institution?

Pakistan cricket is depleted of enough resources without the premature retirement of its leading one-day bowler. Shahid Afridi is impetuous, misguided, and certainly no saint. But it is the devilish Butt whose departure would bring the greatest benefit to Pakistan cricket. He has governed the board during the calamitous attack on Sri Lanka cricketers, the spot-fixing crisis, and the decimation of the national team, and yet he survives to torture us further. If Afridi’s ‘retirement’ can hasten Butt’s demise, then it will have served a critical purpose.

Follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/KamranAbbasi