Butt’s reign of blunders demonstrates that Pakistan cricket is a resilient enterprise © Associated Press

Ijaz Butt is a miracle man. It was a miracle that he survived so long, and a greater miracle that Pakistan cricket survived him. One consolation from Butt’s reign of blunders is an appreciation that Pakistan cricket is a resilient enterprise, capable of withstanding any number of escapades at the precipice of destruction. Butt’s failed suicide mission has affirmed that Pakistan cricket’s demise will only come with the demise of the country.

Under Butt’s half-seeing eye, each routine incident became a crisis, every disaster a calamity. Butt treated a national obsession with utter contempt, yet that obsession is so compulsive that it will endure thanks to the passion of players and supporters. When the Test series begins in Abu Dhabi next week, with one Butt gone and another Butt squirming in a London courtroom, Pakistan cricket will suck in the first breaths of a new life.

Butt’s incompetence is surpassed only by his arrogance. The spot-fixing scandal shames Pakistan cricket each day, a potent testament to the failures of his cricket board, an organisation entirely incapable of handling any challenge. An attack on Sri Lanka’s cricketers on the doorstep of the PCB’s headquarters, isolation of Pakistan cricket and its cricketers, and a corruption crisis all demonstrated the failures of governance on Butt’s watch.

The PCB became unloved at home and abroad, a friendless and joyless body seeking domination by oppressing its prize assets, heroes of Pakistan cricket past and present. It was obvious to everyone except the man himself that he was a bumbling misfit. Thanks to the indulgence of his friend and patron, President Asif Zardari, Butt treated and abused Pakistan cricket like a personal fiefdom.

This was an extreme example of the danger of personal connections prevailing over competence. Butt had no right to head Pakistan cricket but he arrogantly berated his enemies and interfered with the responsibilities of other board officers, including the national selectors. Worse still, his board damaged relationships with star players, Younis Khan and Shahid Afridi being prime examples. All along, Butt unapologetically revelled in the fame that his position and his connections brought him. He had no insight into his unworthiness for the post, only a hubristic conviction in his own decision-making.

Shaharyar Khan was the last of man of quality to head Pakistan cricket, a welcome improvement on the amateur enthusiasms of General Tauqir Zia. But The Oval Test of 2006 weakened Khan, and his successor, Naseem Ashraf, was a chancer on a mission of self-promotion. By the time Butt took charge, the office of board chairman had been devalued and the low expectations of Butt’s regime were amply fulfilled.

Butt leaves Pakistan cricket in an abject mess. The chief selector is also interim national coach. The interim chief selector has a penchant for public disputes and a brazen disregard for conflicts of interest. Several major players are suspended or disenfranchised. Pakistan no longer hosts international cricket. The cricket board is marginalised in international cricket politics. The national team is lowly in international rankings, and the feel-good factor of 2009’s World T20 victory has long since evaporated. Three years of damage will take a generation to repair.

Butt has truly failed and his purported successor, Zaka Ashraf, is unknown to the world except for a worrying proximity to the President of Pakistan. In Pakistan, it seems only the president’s relatives or close friends have the essential skills and experience to run a major enterprise. What a pitifully untalented lot we are. The new chairman’s strongest endorsement is that it is hard to imagine how anybody could fare worse than Butt, although plumbing new depths of incompetence has become a national pastime.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s cricketers attempt to build on encouraging progress since the spot-fixing allegations, and the supporters, almost with one voice, shout good riddance to Butt, the man who came closest to destroying Pakistan cricket. Among the legion catastrophes that have besieged Pakistan cricket in the past decade, the biggest calamity of all was the man himself.

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I asked Pakistan cricket fans to tweet me their verdicts on Ijaz Butt’s reign. Here is a selection of instant reactions:

@ndorobo: Finally, Pak cricket can wake up and rise again.

@passioncricket: Congratulations. At last, a dark era in Pakistan cricket has finished.

@yasirshahid: So Butt is gone. This is the closest Pakistanis are going to get to their Tahrir Square moment.

@mediagag: The night is darkest just before dawn. Really don’t think any night can be darker than Ijaz Butt.

@saz69cent: There are people nominated for top PCB positions I wouldn't trust to park my car.

@aatifnawaz: I'm gutted he's gone. My stand-up comedy career may well die with the end of his tenure. Here's to hilarious mis-management!

@wittytweetspk TauqeerZia Was Better Than ShaharyarKhan WBT NaseemAshraf WBT IjazButt. I fear the day when we will long for Ijaz Butt!

Every man, Shoaib Akhtar included, has a right to make a fool of himself, especially in his autobiography © Getty Images

You might not know there is a vogue for autobiographies by comedians. Indeed, you might not know Shoaib Akhtar as a comedian but, almost by accident, he has made the world laugh. Shoaib is a rare cricketer from his joint hyperextensions to his neuronal synapses. His career has been a journey of scandal interrupted by infrequent displays of brilliance. He is a captivating character on the field of play and an infuriating personality off it. He might even have been great had the fates and his own failings not wrecked his career trajectory.

Perhaps that is the fiercest motivation behind his autobiography, ‘Controversially Yours’? A rare man damns his own deeds; far more palatable to damn the deeds of others. Shoaib prefers j’accuse to mea culpa.

Shoaib has a point. A more professional cricket board and better team leadership might have guided him more wisely through the scandals that besieged him. The throwing controversy and how it was handled by international umpires and the ICC was not his fault, but much else was. When a man of Bob Woolmer’s consummate loyalty and patience despairs of you, you’d be sensible to look inwards for the source of your problems.

Shoaib hasn’t looked inwards, he has struck out against the world safe in the knowledge that his cricketing career is over. That is his prerogative, to end on a sour note with former teammates and adversaries. If he doesn’t rate Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid higher than Ricky Ponting or Viv Richards then fair enough, plenty of other cricketers would agree with him. Imran Khan, Shoaib’s hero, whose more considered autobiography has just been released doesn’t think Tendulkar comes close to Richards either.

Did Sachin fear Shoaib? Who knows? It was only Pakistan’s madcap fast bowler who stared into the maestro’s eyes in the heat of battle. A personal opinion requires neither reprimand nor apology, as reportedly demanded by the BCCI.

Of the rest, nothing seems particularly new, a rerun of old rivalries, intrigues, and badmashies. Capturing the world according to Shoaib is a worthy effort. He is a difficult man to pin down in a verbal joust. Ask him about Sachin and he’ll tell you about Brian Lara. He will mumble incoherently in English and end with no greater clarity in Urdu. He will use a torrent of words — many in common usage, some of his own invention — in an unpredictable order and manage to say nothing at all.

Shoaib remains an entertainer, a legend in his mind’s eye—simply the best, better than the rest. He deserves respect for some of the incredible spells he produced during a tarnished career. He deserves sympathy for the way his cricket board and a succession of captains found it impossible to mentor him. But his career was left unfulfilled by dint of his own misdemeanours as much as, if not more than, by the malice of his enemies.

One of the fascinations of human existence is that we might all experience the same events but we will interpret them in our own, possibly very different ways. That is the power of autobiography. It is one view, a chance at explaining how you saw it without fear or contrition, and Shoaib saw that the world was against him. He also saw an opportunity to grab the limelight, to diss and tell.

In that moment of mad self-promotion, a moment that the media was happy to help sensationalise, the story of Shoaib Akhtar managed to overshadow the greater history of Imran Khan’s life in cricket and politics, and the lesser landmark of Waqar Younis coaching Pakistan to a whitewash over Zimbabwe in his farewell series. Unfortunately, Shoaib’s achievements take far fewer words to catalogue than his love of controversy. In autobiographies, there is usually no smoke without fire but the heat you feel from the blaze depends on how the central character has read the smoke signals. Shoaib saw an inferno. The marketing team for his publishing house did the rest.

Every man, Shoaib Akhtar included, has a right to make a fool of himself, especially in his autobiography.

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Kumar Sangakkara was refreshingly forthright about the politicisation of cricket in Sri Lanka © Matt Bright

World Champions India dominating in the Caribbean, Pakistan cricketers shining in an English domestic tournament, Sri Lanka winning at the home of cricket, Bangladesh a full member of the ICC, all rosy in the garden of South Asian cricket? Rosy, that is, if you choose to turn your gaze from the weeds and parasites destroying this once thriving landscape.

An alternative analysis paints a bleaker picture. India dominating but damaging international cricket, the fabric of Pakistan cricket disintegrating by the day, Sri Lanka in the grip of politically motivated decline, and the cricket of Bangladesh no further advanced than in the days before full member status.

Worryingly, a gloomier verdict has been gathering momentum for years, and a fortnight of expedient words and some forthright wisdom has brought this important debate back to prominence. The cricketing powers of South Asia face fundamental challenges, as underlined by recent pronouncements by ICC officialdom and Kumar Sangakkara’s libero performance, with the decrepit governance of cricket in the region being the unifying theme.

India’s cricket board, the BCCI, faces perhaps the greatest test of character. Having established itself as the power behind the ICC, the BCCI must demonstrate that it is capable of exercising power with responsibility. That responsibility includes the long-term global development of cricket and the welfare of its member cricket boards, a remit that extends far beyond short-term profiteering and promotion of cricket as a national vanity project.

The power of the BCCI is such that criticism falls on deaf ears. What the BCCI wants, whether it is in relation to lucrative national Twenty20 tournaments or the use of technology to support umpiring decisions, is what the BCCI gets. Decisions are couched in diplomatic doublespeak and endorsed by a rubber-stamping majority on the ICC executive.

Whether this judgment is harsh or fair will be proven by the outcomes of the ICC’s governance review and the initiative to depoliticise ICC’s member cricket boards. If in two years time the BCCI is strengthened or merely unaffected by any reforms, these initiatives will have been a sham exercise. Alternatively, were BCCI to emerge weaker and less dominant, favouring a more consensual decision-making process, world cricket would be strengthened.

Power is a drug and the BCCI appears particularly intoxicated. Outside pressure is unlikely to offer detoxification. The onus is on Indians to speak up to reign in their own cricket board. Many do already, but those voices must be multiplied and amplified to divert the BCCI from its present hubristic course. A bitter irony accompanied ICC’s announcement that politics must be separated from cricket governance since the BCCI has played an astute political game to secure its pre-eminent position in world cricket.

The damaging effects of political interference were underlined by Sangakkara’s Spirit of Cricket Lecture at Lord’s this week, and the disease of political interference is a pandemic that engulfs the whole South Asian region in every walk of life. Political interference and obsession with power isn’t unique to South Asia but it threatens the future and integrity of international cricket on a scale unrivalled by any other cricketing country or region.

Sangakkara traces Sri Lanka’s cricket troubles back to the World Cup win in 1996. The passion and clarity of his delivery was refreshing for a modern cricketer, and he helped explain Sri Lanka’s failure to move on significantly from that victorious night in Lahore. A reasonable hypothesis is that as a new cricketing nation with a point to prove success was the primary motivation of all stakeholders in Sri Lankan cricket until that triumph filled people’s heads with thoughts of power, fame, and influence. The politics of power devoured the unity that is a prerequisite for success.

Sangakkara’s robust critique was impressive for its willingness to reproach his countrymen for the sake of the integrity of cricket in his country. Indeed, Imran Khan delivered last year’s Spirit of Cricket Lecture and disappointed many of his countrymen by failing to speak up about the crisis that is engulfing the Pakistan Cricket Board.

Perhaps Imran thought that any criticism would be old hat? Certainly, the report of the ICC Pakistan Task Team has offered no new insights or new solutions to Pakistan’s ills. But it is significant that the task team officially switched its focus to the integrity and governance of Pakistan cricket following the spot-fixing crisis; integrity and good governance first to stabilise Pakistan cricket, the issue of home fixtures a distant second.

In polite diplomatic tones the task team is highly critical of the PCB and its governance of Pakistan cricket. The pot calling the kettle black perhaps but considering the change in the task team’s remit the recommendations are difficult to argue with since they are precisely what the PCB’s critics have been demanding.

In short, the governance of the PCB and its administration of Pakistan cricket is an absolute shambles requiring root and branch reform. Anybody with any genuine affection for Pakistan cricket would agree with that conclusion. There is no mechanism for implementation of the task force’s recommendations, however. More troublesome still is that rather than the report being helpful since the PCB may not even pay lip service, Pakistan cricket is now set up for two unwelcome outcomes.

The absence of a clear road map for the return of international cricket to Pakistan, understandable as it is given the current political climate and the bungling security record of the PCB, the task team has enshrined the policy of Pakistan’s home fixtures being played on neutral venues. Far from hastening tours to Pakistan, the task team has shifted them off the agenda.

What’s more, the Pakistan Cricket Board has been officially placed on notice that its ruinous governance is a major contributor to the crises that have damaged and continue to threaten the integrity of international cricket. Instead of the beginning of a journey to rehabilitate Pakistan cricket, were the PCB to ignore the Pakistan Task Team, this might turn out to be the first step on the road to the expulsion of Pakistan from the ICC.

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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.

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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.

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The task force headed by Giles Clarke must remember that it is the PCB that deserves blame, not Pakistan cricket © Getty Images

The ICC has demanded that Pakistan cricket put its house in order. Reform or be expelled is the cry. For any ardent ICC observers this is a shocking statement simply because the ICC is a serial coward when it comes to confronting its member boards. For Pakistan cricket fans the shock is that their team could be expelled from international cricket. Amidst this catalogue of revelations, the least shocking is that Pakistan's cricket board is in a certified mess. I say cricket board, because this week's Twenty20 domestic tournament played out in front of packed houses, has shown that the thrill of Pakistan cricket is still alive.

For once, ICC's statement is unusually clear. It will take strong action to stamp out corruption, and the PCB is clearly singled out as the number one basket case. I welcome a strong stance on corruption from ICC even though it seems like too little too late. I welcome the ICC's censuring of a dysfunctional cricket board even though it happens to be the PCB. Yet there are major issues that the ICC must address.

The PCB is an easy target, isolated and friendless in international cricket. Would the ICC have taken a more powerful member to task in similar fashion? Let us hope so and a precedent has been established but how will ICC behave if India, for example, were to bring cricket into disrepute?

Further, even Pakistan fans might argue that the ICC has not gone far enough. On what basis is Ijaz Butt still at the board table following his outrageous slander and humiliating apology directed at a fellow member state? And here lies my difficulty with the whole issue, should one man's ineptitude be allowed to destroy a country's cricket?

Indeed, who does Mr Butt represent? Does he really represent Pakistan cricket? On a constitutional level, Mr Butt represents the president of Pakistan, the right honourable Mr Asif Zardari. He was neither elected by plebiscite, nor promoted though merit. He does not represent Pakistan cricket assocations because there is no process other than imposition by the head of state.

At a pragmatic level, Mr Butt speaks for himself and runs the board like a dictatorship. Many of the greatest players in the history of Pakistan cricket consider his tenure to be the worst in the history of Pakistan cricket - and this is a mild account of what they have told me personally.

It is not just Mr Butt's damaging strategies and statements that cause concern but he also brazenly overrules everybody that he appoints. For example, the selection panel does not finally select any squad, Mr Butt does. Selectors have resigned thanks to his interference. What qualifies Mr Butt for this monstrous abuse of power other than the patronage of the president? Mr Butt and his PCB cronies do not represent Pakistan cricket, the PCB has become a politically aggrandised cabal of self-interest and limited vision.

At an emotional level, Mr Butt does not speak for the majority of Pakistan fans. He lost us at the first mumbled hello. He doesn't speak for Pakistan fans on the street or on internet forums. He doesn't speak for me or for the vast majority of supporters who follow this blog or exchange views with me on Twitter. His support is non-existent in the Pakistani media and the Pakistani parliamentary sports committee.

So what does Mr Butt represent? He certainly does represent all that is worst in politicised cricket adminstration. Ultimately, though, Mr Butt represents nobody but himself and his president. That being the case, surely the ICC should take personal action againt Mr Butt rather than punish Pakistan cricket? Why should millions of people suffer for one man's maladministration?

Apart from barring Mr Butt from holding office in cricket adminstration, the ICC must begin to reform all cricket boards that are run on a political basis. If FIFA can do it, why not the ICC? For all its talk of well-meaning task forces and integrity, the ICC has failed to take the boldest possible steps to protect the future of international cricket. At the same time, it could have rid Pakistan cricket of its permanently pressed self-destruct button.

The PCB has been put on notice in no uncertain terms but the Pakistan Task Force is a hostage to the whims of the president of Pakistan and his political motivations. The ICC's actions are full of intent but not strong enough. Worst of all, Mr Butt's name is conspicous by its absence from last week's ICC statement. Pakistan cricket is being murdered and Mr Butt is slipping into the shadows.

Yes, Pakistan cricket requires reform, and root and branch reform at that, Pakistan cricket requires all the help it can get, but it is Mr Butt who requires punishment.

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Is there no room for a man of principle in the Pakistan cricket team? © Associated Press

Amid the regrets, withdrawals, and reversals that pour forth from the orifice of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), one policy remains constant: Younis Khan is barred from selection for the national team. The facts are simple and as ever, they paint a dismal picture for the Chairman of the PCB. Younis is available for selection, yet the selectors are unable to select him. He has no case to answer following the ridiculous ban imposed upon him by the PCB but his case is still open.

The question is why? And the answer is simple: Mr Butt has a shifting policy on apologies. The players banned, barred, or suspended following the disastrous tour of Australia have eased their path back into the team with a well-timed apology to Mr Butt. What they were apologising for, nobody was clear. Why they then apologised is only for their consciences to answer. Mohammad Yousuf's equally well-timed retirement helped him bypass any action from the PCB and obviate the need for an apology.

Yousuf, aside, Mr Butt is big on people apologising to him. When the boot is on the other foot, however, his love of an apology vanishes in a flash. Mr Butt's recent slander of the ECB and its cricket team was followed by a show of defiance that an apology would not follow. For once, he was true to his word. His carefully-worded, legally-crafted retraction did not contain the word 'apology'. It contained intonations of regret, withdrawal, and misunderstanding but no apology in sight.

Indeed, why stop at the ECB? Mr Butt owes some hefty apologies to Pakistan cricket supporters for the destruction of Pakistan cricket. You see, for a man so reluctant to offer any kind of apology for his own misdeeds, it is the cruelest of ironies that he is demanding an apology, a personal one, from Younis, before he allows Mohsin Khan to select him.

What that apology is for, nobody is quite sure? If Mr Butt wants to tell us, we'd be delighted to hear, but I suspect that silence speaks volumes about the lack of gravity of Mr Butt's charge. Younis, for his part is clear and always has been: Why apologise when you have nothing to apologise for?

And thereby hangs the tale of the predicament and the tragedy of Pakistan cricket, that there is no room for a man of principle in the Pakistan cricket team.

Younis has had his fair share of detractors. Mr Butt, of course. Many of the players were unhappy with him and swore an oath against his captaincy. When Pakistan were struggling against Australia this summer, I was reliably informed that 'The Boys' would welcome back Yousuf but they would not want Younis back in the team. The events of the past few weeks, however, have cast all those objections to Younis in a very different light.

Many gruesome disasters have befallen Pakistan cricket in the past 18 months. But perhaps one of the most serious, and easily forgotten among the tidal wave of calamaties, is how the chairman of the national cricket board is killing the career of a World Cup-winning captain. This is a selection scandal that requires an apology - even regret or retraction - from Mr Butt and his hopeless cricket board. Younis Khan owes Mr Butt nothing, least of all an apology.

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Ijaz Butt must go © Getty Images

Command and control are the golden rules of handling any crisis because you can only be in control if you have command of the situation. Sadly, this summer’s spot-fixing controversy has once again revealed that too many cricket administrators, past and present players, and journalists are far from in command once the heat is on anything more complicated than the execution of a forward defensive.

Controversy has dogged each and every Pakistan tour of England for almost three decades. The reasons are complex but dominated by the weaknesses in Pakistan’s cricketing structure, a desire not to be walked over, and rabid suspicion of any Pakistani conduct by an unhealthy proportion of the English media.

To be clear, the video evidence concerning the Lord’s Test was alarming and action was required. It was a shame that the reluctance of the Pakistan board to suspend its three players forced the ICC to take action, which it was right to do. But that doesn’t excuse the events that have unfolded in the aftermath, as the crisis has exposed the failings of institutions and individuals across the globe.

1 The ICC initially responded well but the surprise of the News of the World allegations left everybody wondering what the ICC’s anti-corruption unit has been doing for a decade? Is it credible that an investigative journalist is more skilled and resourceful than an international unit?

When the ICC followed up by questioning the integrity of the third ODI and twenty-two cricketers without releasing any meaningful evidence, the impression was of an organisation out of its depth. Reform of the ICC is necessary and must be a top priority. A game governed by an organisation weaker than its members will always flounder.

Without urgent change the ICC will continue to lose its command of international cricket. The member boards must vote for a stronger ICC executive with greater powers. Yes, these turkeys must vote for Christmas.

2 Enough has been said about the PCB already but a key point is that the PCB’s unprofessionalism and weakness in governing its own players and sport makes Pakistan cricket an easy target for corruption, manipulation, and condemnation.

The PCB may not change until the Pakistan government changes, or somebody in a position of power acquires a conscience, but surely the ICC should be demanding minimum standards from its member boards. Unfortunately, when the ICC itself is a dysfunctional organisation, imposing any minimum standards on its members is wishful thinking.

Pakistan cricket must put its house in order and that is impossible with Ijaz Butt ruling the roost. He must go.

3 Michael Atherton surmised that Ijaz Butt is a clown and should be ignored. Butt’s ill-conceived rant against England’s cricketers was unbecoming of the chairman of a national cricket board. If Butt had evidence he should have handed it to the ICC for action, not blurted it out to the national and international media.

Yet Butt is in the company of distinguished clowns. Ian Botham and Michael Vaughan have called for Pakistan to be banned, a whole nation banished for unproven accusations against a handful of cricketers and the bleating of a known blusterer. Botham has history with Pakistan, history that diminishes his great deeds on the cricket pitch. Cricketing ability, we know, is no proxy for logical thinking or fair-mindedness.

While Botham is shameless in his attitude towards Pakistan, and his rant as equally unexpected as one from Butt, Vaughan should be ashamed, a reputation as a cerebral cricketer dashed in a moment of hyperbole. If Butt is a clown then Botham and Vaughan have joined his caravan of clowns. Fortunately the ECB has steered a sensible course through this crisis and ensured that shrill voices were ignored and the series played out to a conclusion.

All the clowns, not just Butt, are best ignored.

4 Despite the summer scandal, a decent proportion of the English media has remained considered in its approach to the crisis and supportive of the plight of Pakistan cricket. It is even wrong to suggest that the News of the World might have some vendetta against Pakistan cricket.

I believe that if it had discovered similar evidence against English cricketers it would have launched into the scandal with equal relish. That is how this newspaper goes about its business. Nonetheless, the usual suspects in the tabloid press have used the crisis to declare open season on Pakistan’s players, calling for the expulsion of Pakistan cricket from the ICC and attempting to dig up any dirt that they can grasp.

Sensationalism is part of their agenda, and just like Botham they have a history of conflict with Pakistan cricket. Would these voices attack a nation’s sport with such venom if that nation were India or South Africa, for example? Of course not, Pakistan cricket is an easy target, a product of a misunderstood nation crippled by atrocious governance. Where Mr Butt and his players failed is that they provided so much ammunition that they became a tabloid dream.

A summer that offered rehabilitation has ended in recrimination. A caravan of clowns rushed through a desert of integrity, passing an occasional oasis of sparkling cricket. It left heads spinning and hearts broken.

We can’t expect players and ex-players to be masters of logic. We can’t expect the media to give a sucker an even break. We can, however, expect a sport to be governed properly. Cricket can be healed but not without reform of the ICC and failing national boards like Pakistan’s.

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Among the many disasters during the regime of Butt, the suggestion of ethnic prejudice is among the gravest © AP

The Karachi City Cricket Association has called for the removal of Ijaz Butt as chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board. Its central grievance is that Karachi-based players are being discriminated against in the selection process. The facts, they argue, speak for themselves. Tanvir Ahmed is the only Karachi-based player left in the squad.

Critics have started calling the Pakistan team a Punjab XI. They identify the omissions of Younis Khan, Fawad Alam, and even Mohammad Sami as evidence to support their case. Danish Kaneria, another Karachi player, was suddenly chopped from the squad and replaced by a promising Punjabi teenager. With Umar Gul out with injury and Yasir Hameed unable to earn selection, the taunts of Punjab XI may well become reality at the Oval.

If only Punjabis stride out to represent Pakistan in the next Test it will be a shameful moment in the history of Pakistan cricket. The Pakistan team has always been a microcosm of the greater struggle of the Pakistani nation, whose founder's ambitions were to bring together the peoples of the four major provinces of Pakistan. Among the many disasters during the regime of Butt, this suggestion of ethnic prejudice is among the gravest.

Karachi has produced some of the greatest cricketers in the history of Pakistan cricket. Hanif Mohammad, the holder of Pakistan's highest Test score, and Javed Miandad, in my view the best of all Pakistani batsmen, both hail from the heaving, over-populated metropolis that is Pakistan's largest city. Indeed, a neat but inaccurate generalisation suggests that Karachi has produced Pakistan's batsmen while the northern parts have produced the bowlers.

The power struggle between Lahore and Karachi, Punjab and Sind, has been an ever present backdrop to Pakistani life, waxing and waning with political regimes and the passage of time. Now the decision-making of Butt's regime has brought the issue into sharp focus again. He denies any regionalism in the selection process, saying that the selectors have chosen the best players available but here is why he, personally, has a case to answer:

1. The notion of an autonomous selection panel is a myth. Butt has taken too personal an involvement in selection matters, sometimes making decisions without the knowledge of the chairman of selectors. Some of Pakistan's greatest cricketers have begun working with the cricket board and then resigned. Butt's interference has been a deciding factor. Hence the responsibility for the current situation rests with him and his master, the patron of the cricket board.

2. The gross imbalance in the origins of the squad members is a statistic that cannot be ignored. This is not an argument for a quota system, nor is one desirable. But it beggars belief that a province the size of Sind, and with its tradition of cricket, cannot produce more cricketers to represent Pakistan. There are two possible explanations. Either the selection process is biased or the development of cricketers in Sind is being mishandled. In either scenario, Butt and his cricket board are responsible.

3. Some of the omitted Karachi cricketers have arguable cases. One player's case is clear cut. Younis Khan, who the cricket board has admitted has no case to answer, remains unselected. He was available for selection at the start of the tour but wasn't included. Now that the board has decided to recall Mohammad Yousuf - and let us put aside the issue of whether it was right or wrong to change the squad at this point - why is Younis, a Karachi-based player, not offered the same clemency? If anything, Younis had a stronger case for a return considering his recent appearances for Surrey.

The failings of Butt and his PCB regime have become legend. By constantly interfering with selection policy he must take direct responsibility for the failures of selection on this tour, which have left the team pitifully short of viable options. Even the existing options, such as Yasir Hameed, have not been tried. Further, the regional bias in selection, whether through intent or mismanagement, is also his responsibility.

In these circumstance, how can the Pakistani selectors continue in post? Mohsin Khan's reputation is being damaged by the second. A hero of Pakistan cricket is being walked all over. He only need look at the examples of Abdul Qadir and Aamir Sohail to see what the correct course of action is. It takes integrity to step away from a senior position on a point of principle. But integrity is in short supply among those who run Pakistan cricket.

These pages have been calling for Butt's resignation or removal for over a year. This has been the most damaging regime in the history of Pakistan cricket. Butt has run it like a dictator, taking comfort in the strength of his political connections. Meanwhile, the organisation that he runs has disintegrated below him.

The most important outcome of the work of the Pakistan Cricket Board is the performance of the cricketers who represent the aspirations of an embattled nation. The performances speak for themselves. The imbalance in selection means that a team unrepresentative of Pakistan is taking the field. Whatever that team is, however, it deserves our support. But the chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board, the man who engineered this disaster, does not.

Of course, President Zardari has other matters on his mind, such as dodging shoes and convincing his people that he does care about flood victims. He might also consider the irony that his visit to England was less important to Pakistanis than the visit of his country's cricketers. They are the most visible and engaging ambassadors of Pakistan on the international stage.

Just as Pakistan deserves better from its leaders in so many other spheres, cricket is no exception. While President Zardari would never sack himself, he can easily sack Butt. Politicians, administrators, former players, journalists, and fans need to raise their voices in protest. Zaheer Abbas, a Punjabi living in Karachi, said Pakistan cricket is heading for disaster. I'll go one step further - Butt has led Pakistan cricket to calamity and must be removed.

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Younis Khan seeks justice but in Pakistan cricket there is no reward for dignity © AFP

Pakistan cricket has its last chance to get its house in order before a tough summer of cricket against Australia and England. The Asia Cup might be considered a distraction but it is also another shot at gathering momentum and resurrecting some damaged careers.

Shahid Afridi has put all bans behind him by claiming the national captaincy in all formats, a mighty responsibility. In the absence of viable alternatives, Afridi is the best choice. He is a leader rather than a tactician, and requires a more creative mind to cajole him through those confusing moments in the middle of an international match.

He could turn to his new vice-captain, Salman Butt, although their coupling is virgin. He might consider the repentant sinner that is Shoaib Malik, although their past entanglements suggest otherwise. The same would apply to Shoaib Akhtar, pardoned and toned up for action. What about Kamran Akmal, Umar Akmal, or Mohammad Asif? All sinners too, now forgiven.

Indeed, the PCB has suddenly swapped its jackboot for a velvet glove. Nobody really expected otherwise, even though the routine on this occasion has been even more brazen than usual. Rana Naved-ul Hasan, a player who admitted underperforming on duty for his country, is fortunate that the PCB has lost all notion of justice. Despite some encouraging selections for the Asia Cup, does anybody still respect this cricket administration?

Now only two wounded beasts remain in the wilderness. Mohammad Yousuf perhaps prefers the wilderness? He still has runs in him at Test level but his decision about a return, dependent on the advice of elders, seems unclear and opportunistic. He is too great a batsman to squander his talent with this dithering.

Meanwhile, Younis Khan would welcome a return to international cricket but he will not do it with a compromise. Why should a World Cup winning captain agree to pay a fine when he isn't guilty, especially when he is the victim of a conspiracy? Paying a fine is an admission of guilt, and Younis has too much pride to sell his soul. It is rare for a modern Pakistan cricketer to make a stand on principle. It is even rarer for the current cricket board to admit it has made a mistake. It should. Afridi requires a wise counsel and the summer of Tests requires a middle-order batsman with an average of over 50.

Younis seeks justice but in Pakistan cricket there is no reward for dignity.

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Mohammad Yousuf led Pakistan during the disastrous tour of Australia © Associated Press

Amid the fuss about Pakistan's performance on their latest tour of Australia, two conclusions are clear. First, the ICC's anti-corruption unit does not have any evidence to suggest that Pakistan's players were involved in match-fixing, although the investigation is 'live'. Indeed, it laments the disintegration of the team. Which leads to the second conclusion, a conclusion that has been hammered into our skulls for the last 12 months and beyond: Pakistan cricket is a mismanaged circus.

It is somehow convenient to blame the players for their ill-discipline and lack of professionalism but how can you expect barely educated, ill-guided young men to behave to top standards? Even the best educated, most experienced senior executives squabble, backbite, connive, and act with self interest if their organisation creates the appropriate malignant atmosphere.

How can we expect high standards from cricketers who do not know what standards are? Ignorance may not be an excuse, you might argue, but Pakistan's players are hardly equipped with the tools to learn for themselves. The failings in Pakistan cricket are the crassest example of mismanagement, and that mismanagement is by the PCB and its appointed team officials.

Yes, the players have brought shame upon themselves but their behaviour has been tacitly encouraged by their employers.

Why then have these selected videos come to light now? It is not clear that the players and officials even knew they were being filmed. The excuse the PCB is peddling is that it released the videos to some of the accused players. Why was this done? It is usual in a legal process to simply send a transcript of a hearing.

Ultimately, if your management of an enterprise is so hopeless and you are so unaware of the real problems your organisation faces that you have to launch an inquiry after each failure, you will encourage a destructive atmosphere. People will conspire against colleagues, skeletons will tumble out of cupboards, and morale will be destroyed. In this behaviour, badly managed Pakistan cricketers are no different to badly managed government ministers or corporate executives.

A wise head is required, however, to call time on this circus in Pakistan cricket. Instead of a wise head, we have a ringmaster thrashing the circus to higher and higher states of frenzy. That ringmaster isn't Younis Khan, Mohammad Yousuf, or Shoaib Malik. That ringmaster is the PCB. When will the circus end?

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	We now wait for Big Mohammad Irfan to take off, another flight abandoned in the age of volcanic ash © Associated Press

Pakistan’s version of Big Bird, Mohammad Irfan, was all set for a last minute entry into the T20 World Cup. Big Irf’s story would have been a traditional and modern day triumph. Traditional in the sense that Pakistan cricket is known for launching unheard of fast bowlers onto the world stage. A modern triumph, too, as Big Irf was discovered by a fan who championed his cause via website Pakpassion.net and then continued his story on another website, Cricistan.

Pakistan’s newly installed captain, coach and chairman of selectors—let’s be clear, men with considerable international experience—decided that they wanted Big Irf to replace one of their injured pace bowlers, a surprise package indeed. Such instinctive decisions set Pakistan cricket apart from others. They lift the gloom of failure and inject hope and curiosity. This one had an added twist of incredible height. Whether Big Irf is just under seven feet tall or just over, bizarrely, nobody seems quite sure.

Mr Butt, chairman of the cricket board, galumphed into this glowing scenario and turned a fascinating decision on its head. The simple point here is that the selection process should be autonomous from the chairman of the cricket board. If he doesn’t like the decisions, he should sack the head of selectors and his panel. Mr Butt’s meddling has immediately undermined the authority of Pakistan’s new management team. A wise chairman would have supported his chosen leaders. Typically, Mr Butt decided on a show of strength, a slap down for Shahid Afridi, Waqar Younis, and Mohsin Khan.

Arguments against Big Irf’s selection have been spurious. There is scope for players outside the provisional squad to be selected. Visas can be acquired quickly, and the team may have avoided the UK because of volcanic ash in any case. The chief selector may have spoken without the approval of the rest of the selection panel, but his opinion backed by the captain and coach should have held sway. Mr Butt may have appointed Mohsin to head the selection panel but he has behaved as if he is the chief selector, Mohsin merely his vassal.

With the recent McCarthyite purge orchestrated by Mr Butt and the promise of a new start, Pakistan fans were sold the lie that higher standards were in operation. Sadly, Mr Butt has failed the first test of his new regime. It will ever be thus. Apparently, we get the leaders we deserve but not even Pakistan cricket deserves the unworthy gang that runs the Pakistan Cricket Board.

What of the fans? We now wait for Big Irf to take off, another flight abandoned in the age of volcanic ash.

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	Aleem Dar became the Umpire of the Year, beating five-time winner Simon Taufel to the award © Getty Images

My iPhone buzzed like crazy last night in response to a torrent of emails from the ICC announcing awards winners from the big event. I didn't expect much success for Pakistan but I did believe that their extraordinary performance in the World T20 would earn one of their players a gong. Now I have nothing but admiration for Dilshan and his frying pan shot. Sri Lanka have faced adversity too.

Nonetheless the big Twenty20 performances of the last year were the ones that turned the World T20 on its head and in Pakistan's favour. My sympathies also extended to South Africa, whose phenomenal performance in Test cricket last year went unrecognised. The only triumph for Pakistan was Aleem Dar's umpiring award, which I admit is a considerable achievement and recognition for the way in which Dar and Asad Rauf have transformed the reputation of Pakistani umpires.

Overall, however, the ICC awards have left me baffled. The leading countries in two out of three formats went unrecognised. There is no relationship between the ICC awards and the ICC rankings for countries or individuals, which are recalculated regularly to maintain our interest. What then is the point of all this? There is little real feel to these awards and hence fans, and I guess some players, will be disillusioned.

It's time for a rethink.

	The ICC looks to have lost control of the governance of the game and its ordered global development © Getty Images

The drum beats of the World T20 are beginning to sound. The last gripping tournament already seems a distant memory. World cricket has been transformed in these last two years as has the political situation in Pakistan. While the English media talk of this world tournament as little more than a precursor to the Ashes series that will follow, Pakistan cricket will view the next few weeks with the utmost importance.

My hope is that the World T20 will restore some perspective, some romance and fascination. We do now have a glut of fixtures and contests, and this development has been too fast, too haphazard, and driven too much by greed. Worse still, the ICC looks to have lost control of the governance of the game and its ordered global development. Cricket's administrators and television companies have lost sight of what is important.

By comparison, football has bowed to some degree to similar pressures but it has managed to preserve a sense of theatre and surprise. FIFA, for all its stifling bureaucracy, manages to enforce a rigid order which means that no national association is bigger than the sport's governing body. Cricket has suffered the rule of the English and Australians, and now sits at the mercy of India. Such individual force is a bigger problem in cricket than football. No country should be bigger than the sport.

Cricket's world is smaller than football's, a few nations playing repeatedly against each other, a few players reliving familiar combats. A glut in football can be accommodated by the sheer number of top-level participants. A glut in cricket removes the thrill and surprise of the game, and ultimately removes viewers and spectators.

Take this week's European Champions' League final for example. Despite the volume of matches played this year across Europe, Barcelona's contest with Manchester United carried the excitement of the unknown, and the delicious taste of a sporting treat--indeed, doubly so for me and my fellow supporters of Liverpool.

Cricket is in danger of overkill, and the IPL and its imitators in other countries are playing a major part. We require a formula that preserves the novelty of encounters. The familiarity of combatants will breed contempt among viewers.

I am a fan of T20 and to my surprise I enjoyed last year's IPL tournament. I have been unable to watch this year's tournament because my concern is that Pakistan and its cricketers are being systematically marginalised by certain elements of the international cricket community. The removal of Pakistan's champions from the planned T20 Champions League tournament is further evidence to support that view. I find it hard to watch tournaments from which Pakistan's players have been deliberately excluded.

The final responsibility for this disorder in world cricket must rest with the ICC. The game we love is being devalued. This is not the fault of T20 or cricketers. It is the fault of administrators, television moguls, and businessmen, to whom short-term financial returns matter more than a long-term vision of a successful sport. This is the cricket crunch that will lead to a collapse in viewers and eventually funding. Who will put the brakes on this mismanaged juggernaut heading for a crash?

It might be legally flawed or it might not but the ICC's decision to withdraw World Cup matches from Pakistan was hardly a surprise. The simple fact that sets Pakistan's situation apart from other troubled countries is that the Pakistani authorities promised presidential level security but failed to provide it. There might be conflict in the rest of Asia but none of Pakistan's neighbours has made empty security promises. It is a situation without a saving grace or a get-out-of-jail card.

Under these circumstances, it is hard to see any cricketer or cricket board trusting the PCB and the Pakistan Government in the immediate future. This depressing reality will be hard to accept for Pakistan fans, especially those who will be cheering on the PCB's latest legal battle.

But the PCB's complaint will produce no winners, nor will it persuade anybody to tour Pakistan. The only beneficial outcome for Pakistan cricket might be that the ICC could be forced to put together a hefty compensation package. Either way, this legal stupidity will add further evidence to the view held by potential tourists that the PCB has lost touch with reality.

Instead, the PCB should push for Pakistan's matches to be relocated to Dubai and UAE. Yes, all Pakistan cricket fans want international teams to return but that is a misplaced hope for the next World Cup considering the current conflict within Pakistan. Now is the time for pragmatism, and relocation is the PCB's best option.

Now is also the time to make sure that all PCB communications are professionally prepared. The quality of the statement issued by Ijaz Butt suggests that it had not been vetted by the PCB's England-based lawyers. A strange process considering that the PCB is launching a highly controversial, high profile legal case? But then attention to detail, proper process, and political judgment are attributes that this current PCB regime has been especially incapable of mastering.

The ICC's decision to drop Pakistan as a venue for the next World Cup is a reasonable one. Pakistan's failure to protect Sri Lanka's cricketers looks even more shocking considering the level of security that now surrounds Pakistan's players. The failures of Pakistan's government and cricket board will take many years to recover from.

In the meantime, Pakistan cricket must focus on what is important: ensuring that it retains a viable domestic structure and regular international cricket. Trotting the globe is a lifeline for Younis Khan's team, an imposition that offers their only hope to remain competitive. When Pakistan take the field against Australia next week they should breathe in the relief of their new nomadic way, embrace it, and make it a success.

Of course, the international community should do more to support cricket in Pakistan but we know it won't. In these circumstances, hosting international matches is unimportant provided that neutral venues can secure sufficient revenue to sustain Pakistan cricket. A cricket series or tournament is fundamentally a revenue generating opportunity; for proof look no further than the IPL in South Africa. But keeping the sport alive is the utmost priority, and the lost chance to host a World Cup and other international matches is the least of Pakistan's problems.

	Sohail Tanvir is one of several Pakistani players who've had their contracts suspended by the IPL © AFP

The possibility of the IPL moving offshore brings sadness and perhaps opportunity. Cricket is now so cowed by fear of terrorism that three South Asian nations have had key tournaments disrupted within weeks of the Lahore attacks. While a contest between Pakistan and Bangladesh would have struggled to set the pulse racing, the Indian Premier League managed to enthrall even the most skeptical of cricket fans. Much of that fascination was created by the passion of India's cricket fans, the biggest losers if the tournament is relocated.

The opportunities, however, carry their own fascination - especially for Pakistan cricket fans. Importantly, a successful offshore IPL will ease Pakistan's transition to a team of globetrotters. Furthermore, the PCB and IPL could consider reinstating Pakistan's cricketers if the tournament is outside India. Is that too much too ask? Aren't all nations victims of terrorism? Why should Pakistan's players be penalised and prevented from participating in a purportedly global tournament? Don't Pakistan's cricketers require support from the international cricket community to help competitive international cricket to survive in Pakistan?

The IPL has an opportunity to show that cricket has the power to repair damaged national relationships, and that it will not be cowed by terrorism. Indeed, becoming the premier world competition is not simply a matter of financial muscle, it is also a matter of leading by impeccable example.

	ICC's role, with reference to Pakistan, has to be to allow willing nations to tour © AFP

India's unfortunate decision to cancel their tour of Pakistan is a serious blow to cricket in South Asia. The decision is a political one, and one I believe to be incorrect. Perpetrators of atrocities will be encouraged by the political divisions they create. Disharmony and conflict sustain them.

Cricketers and cricket fans have often shown that the regional instinct for friendship is greater than the desire to destroy each other. The only glimmer of hope is that the Indian government sees the wisdom in friendship but has judged the mood of its people will not tolerate a sporting encounter with Pakistan just yet.

As appalling as India's decision is to Pakistan fans, Sri Lanka's quick acceptance is a boost. The state of Pakistan cricket is such that it must seek willing opposition at home, abroad, and on neutral venues. International cricket must become the rule again and not the exception.

All of which makes Haroon Lorgat's reference to a security inspection on behalf of ICC officials even more surprising. ICC's role, with reference to Pakistan, has to be to allow willing nations to tour. The world of international cricket is already too small to bear the loss of emerging nations like Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, and established ones like Pakistan.

The security survey for officials would also have been an unprecedented move by ICC, adding strength to the argument that the international cricket community is displaying double standards in its treatment of Pakistan. Little wonder, then, that the ICC media machine rapidly issued clarifications of Lorgat's comment, which reads perfectly clearly in its original form.

Pakistan cricket is in a mess but so is ICC, because a shrinking cricket world means that it is hostage to the whims of one or two powerful members. The myopic view is to bend to that power, which is a dangerous mistake. But the ICC has yet to demonstrate that it has a viable long-term strategy to allow international cricket to flourish or the courage to stand up to its most dominant members.

ICC's main hope as an organisation is to grow its membership. Instead, it is an organisation stricken by its failure to ensure that its least powerful or least desirable constituents are not marginalised.

	Cricket is a shared passion and pleasure in a region that is consumed by an overwhelming misery © AFP

Cricket is a shared love of the people of South Asia but we share much more than cricket. I say this on my return from a conference of the South Asian Health Foundation, a UK charitable organisation that seeks to improve the health of the South Asian community. It is an organisation that I am fond of, and not just because I am one of the patrons. Each gathering includes many representatives of all South Asian nations and religions, yet we are never divided by nationality or religion. Instead, we stand united in seeking a better life for people who share our background.

This easy unity fills me with hope that even this horrendous week cannot destroy what the people of South Asia share, for what we have in common far outweighs our differences. Outside the fevered atmosphere of South Asia, the passion that surrounds those differences seems nonsensical and horribly misguided. Indeed, all South Asian nations are now victims of barbaric violence. We fight a common enemy: the murderers who seek to divide us.

What has cricket to do with this? Everything. Cricket, as my friend Saad Shafqat once wrote, is the magic glue that binds South Asia. It is a shared passion and pleasure in a region that is consumed by an overwhelming misery. Cricket has helped intitiate dialogue and collaboration on previous occasions when war was looming--and we must cling to every prospect of dialogue and collaboration because a conflict between nuclear neighbours brings the dread of unthinkable consequences.

Hence, I add my voice to the passion of Javed Miandad and the wisdom of Sambit Bal. India's upcoming tour of Pakistan, far from being an irrelevance, is fundamental to the dialogue and collaboration that will defeat those who seek to plunge the region into a devastating conflict.

The tour should go ahead. United we stand, divided we are lost.

	Is the ICC concerned about cricket in Pakistan? © AFP

I have received a plea: “Dr Abbasi, please do something for Pakistan cricket!!!” I thought I was playing my part but clearly not forcefully enough for Fahad Khan from Oklahoma.

I guess his sentiments will chime with those of many Pakistan fans. This edited extract of his email letter speaks for itself. Do you agree?

“The reason for my email,” writes Fahad Khan, “is the frustration I am feeling within myself on the state of Pakistan cricket. I am not particularly talking about the performance of Pakistan team on the field, but the situation of uncertainty everyone involved with Pakistan cricket (including the fans) is facing and feeling.

“I thought that I needed to vent my frustration somewhere but the problem is that it will be of no use if I do it on an online forum. Who is going to notice?

“Then I thought of you, who knows people and who is known by many. Whatever you write is read by millions including those who are influential and have the power to act. I guess what I really want to see is someone like you saying loudly that there is a murder going on and someone needs to stop it.

“If nothing happens Pakistan cricket will die of a slow poison. That slow poison was probably injected sometime after the Pakistan-England five-Test series in England (1992). I guess few people realise that it was the last time Pakistan played a five-Test series against any side. It is shameful that a side like Pakistan has not played a five-Test series for more than 16 years.

“There was an influx of too many ODIs in the late '90s and the trend has continued. Pakistan slowly became a mediocre Test side because our players developed a temperament for one-day cricket, which has got little to do with real cricket.

“And then slowly Pakistan started to play fewer Test matches. There are two main reasons: incompetence of the PCB to get competitive series/matches, and reluctance of teams to tour Pakistan. In 2008 Pakistan hasn’t played a single Test in or outside Pakistan, and only played a few measly ODIs.

“I know all this information is nothing new for you but the most surprising part is no one seems to care about it. The PCB is trying to do something, which obviously is not working, but what's wrong with other countries and the ICC?

“Does the ICC realise that this situation can kill Pakistan cricket? Or don't they really care since the decision makers in Pakistan couldn't care less? We want someone to say that yes they are concerned about Pakistan cricket. It could be ICC, another cricket board, or someone in Pakistan?

“Dr Abbasi, I guess it’s you as well as, writers like you who have a duty and responsibility now. You can address this issue of insensitivity and indifference towards Pakistan cricket within and outside Pakistan. Please do something.”

	Ashraf's whimsical tenure is the worst period in Pakistan's modern history © AFP

You may find this hard to believe but Dr Ashraf has divided opinion in Pakistan. His numerous critics have encountered a plentiful supply of advocates. The central argument of the advocates of Ashraf is that he talks much sense. Nurtured in medical and human development environments, Ashraf has a soothing tone that pulls together jargon and management rhetoric to create an aura of competence.

Yet talking a good strategy is only one element of the role of the head of an organisation. The ultimate benchmark is the quality of decision making, and this is where Ashraf's record is lamentable.

Although Ashraf and his colleagues may blame their predecessors for destroying the foundations of Pakistan cricket, the rapid decline of the past two years is at complete odds with Ashraf's rhetoric. We have seen a downturn in results, administration, and spectacle. The worst sin has been that the excitement that fans traditionally associate with Pakistan cricket has almost disappeared.

Readers of this blog will be familiar with criticisms of Ashraf and his PCB. They ripple through every aspect of the administration of Pakistan cricket, and draw me to the conclusion that Ashraf's whimsical tenure is the worst period in Pakistan's modern history.

When selecting candidates for the hall of shame, Tauqir Zia's rule would rival Ashraf's but the General's fortune was that he caught the tail end of the careers of some of Pakistan's greatest cricketers and the beginning of a new era of some optimism.

It is hard to find that optimism now. Pakistan's captain is weak and troubled. The bowling resources are ravaged by drugs and scandal. The batsmen are incomplete and unreliable. The coach is unproved and under pressure. The administration is divided and unpopular. Even the future of cricket in Pakistan seems to hang in the balance on a daily basis.

Yet out of this mess Pakistan fans will find hope, as they always do. The greatest hope will be that the new chairman of the board will have the capabilities to resurrect the team's performance and the stature of his country on the international stage.

Dr Nasim Ashraf came, saw, and floundered. How long will it take to conquer?

	Darren Pattinson was helped by European legislation, a spate of injuries, and a seriously misguided selection policy © Getty Images

Should a cricketer be denied an international career by the inconvenience of birth or upbringing? Last week brought us the differing cases of Danish Kaneria and Darren Pattinson. Both are disturbing.

Kaneria is flirting with the idea of qualifying for England if Pakistan continue to ignore him. He denies any immediate intent, of course, but the fact that the thought lives with him betrays the mentality of an opportunist.

Representing your country at international level should be a badge of honour not a badge of convenience. These are tough times in Kaneria's international career but he must choose fight not flight--and both Pakistani and English cricket boards can help with an unequivocal message that any transfer of allegiance will not be welcome.

Pattinson, meanwhile, has flirted with his English heritage to take his career from obscurity to the international arena. The dilemma is not entirely of his making, however. European legislation, a spate of injuries, and a seriously misguided selection policy have thrust him into an uncomfortable controversy.

The concerns of some England cricketers are understandable. What is the point of a national cricket structure if it can be subverted by a stroke of crass opportunism by England's selectors? The ECB will say it is playing by the rules but there are bad laws as well as good ones. People in positions of seniority are paid not only for their adherence to regulations but also for their judgment.

Danish Kaneria may harbour a plan B that sees him join forces with the ECB but he is united with them prematurely in the club of international chancers who ridicule the sport and the cricket fans of their respective countries.

	Asia, and in particular India, must show that its aspirations to lead international cricket into a new world are propped up by substance © AFP

Zimbabwe has always enjoyed the support of Asian cricket boards. I have also argued in the past that cricket links should be maintained despite Robert Mugabe's regime. But the Zimbabwe political crisis is at a point which makes the decision a clear one for cricket boards in all countries. England were among the most likely to pursue a boycott but the South African decision - as well as statements from political leaders in South Africa - is the most significant turning point.

The political situation in Zimbabwe and the actions of the other cricket boards should be a sufficient steer for Asia's cricket administrators. This is not a time to play out a race game in the ICC or worry about accusations of hypocrisy. Asia, and in particular India, must show that its aspirations to lead international cricket into a new world are propped up by substance. And this substance is not one of populations or finances. It is the substance of integrity and morals.

Asia must show its leadership can be based on values, and this is the easiest test of leadership it could face.

	Is Nasim Ashraf firing salvos in zones outside his ambit? © Getty Images

Some companies have a policy of avoiding emails to tick off employees. Emails often read more angrily than they were written. Cold words, delivered without the benefit of emotion or inflection, can sting and wound. But perhaps that was Dr Ashraf's intention with his furious email to Talat Ali about Pakistan's dismal performance against India?

As chairman of the board, Ashraf carries the ultimate responsibility for the success or failure of the national cricket team. He has a duty to hire and fire, encourage and admonish in the pursuit of excellence and a return to glory days. On the evidence of Pakistan's recent form and this email, don't expect anything glorious anytime soon.

Since we don't have the fortune to read all his emails we can only assume that the Ashraf that is revealed in this email is the true Ashraf. And this Ashraf is frustrated, and rightly so, at the failure of his team and their abject approach. As chairman he has every right to question the team's attitude, integrity, and the wisdom of selecting unfit players. Yet, much of Ashraf's scattergun email fires bullets at targets that are outside his zone.

It is interesting to consider where a chairman should interfere and where he should not. My concern is that Ashraf's email reveals a degree of interference in team selection and cricketing tactics that is unhealthy for Pakistan cricket and beyond his remit as chairman. It is a revelation that helps explain the floundering progress of Pakistan under his tenure, because with this degree of detailed interference it is hard for the team management to execute their duties effectively to plan.

Team selection, the batting approach, and the bowling strategies are for the coach and captain to decide. The selectors are next best placed to comment and offer guidance on these issues. A chairman might offer helpful suggestions, even ask the right questions, on cricketing tactics but not offer the angry tirade in his email.

Simply put, Ashraf needs to trust his management team or fire them. Either way, he should continue his pursuit of better attitude and higher standards but leave the cricketing details to the men he has hired to do the job.

The problem for Ashraf, of course, is that he is sinking under the weight of his relentless failure--and there is too much to put right before time runs out.

	"It comes as no surprise that the world's cricket boards haven't supported Malcolm Speed's principled stance" © Getty Images

As Malcolm Speed departs the stage I finally find myself agreeing with him. Financial irregularities are a cardinal sign of corruption, and while corruption has many tentacles each poisonous limb has to be amputated at every opportunity. The affairs of Zimbabwe and the poverty of its people are dismal enough without the international cricket community tacitly endorsing financial irregularities in Zimbabwe's cricket board.

The case for playing cricket against Zimbabwe is tenuous enough, it becomes almost unsustainable if there is no financial probity.

It should, however, come as no surprise that the world's cricket boards have not supported Speed's principled stand--and if early reports are to be believed it is indeed that. How many of the other cricket boards have financial skeletons in their bookkeeping cupboards?

I can name one. Guess who? Only this week Pakistani newspapers have been running pieces on how the Pakistan Cricket Board failed to disclose salary payments to its Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Marketing Director, and Director of Human Resources on its payroll. The financial officer and another finance department worker have resigned.

In my role as chief executive of a company, I find it incredible that the salaries of any staff, let alone such senior directors, have not appeared on the organization's payroll. You would not excuse this practice from a small business, coming from a major national and international organization it is an absolute disgrace from which the chief executive and chief operating officer cannot be extricated.

With money sloshing about international cricket as never before this is a time for the ICC and the Pakistani government respectively to take a firm stand. The ICC looks to be failing its test on Zimbabwe. The Pakistani government must ensure that the PCB is not allowed to wriggle out of this one either. I have no problem with cricket officials being well paid as long as they execute their roles in a deserving manner and their payments are transparent. At present, it would be hard to argue that Zimbabwe and Pakistan cricket officials are succeeding in either way. The other cricket boards should be ashamed too.

	Nasim Ashraf has chosen to sue Shoaib Akhtar for his comments to a private television channel © AFP

Some of Shoaib's retaliatory comments might have hurt. They might have even crossed the line of what is fair, decent, and lawful but leading any organisation, especially a high profile one, requires a healthy dose of judgment and wisdom. By choosing to sue Shoaib for a multi-million dollar payout, Ashraf has confirmed that he has neither in sufficient supply to head a nationally important organisation.

Indeed, instead of him suing Shoaib, the many millions of people around the world who hold Pakistan cricket dear might feel justified in a legal action against Ashraf for damaging the reputation of Pakistan cricket. This farce has become an international joke. The patron of Pakistan cricket has to bring this stupidity to an end. Earlier this week, I said--with irony--way to go Dr Ashraf. I'll amend that to: Time to go.

	A five-year ban will almost certainly end Shoaib's Pakistan career © AFP

Few careers could have finished more often than Shoaib Akhtar's. Ironically, this end is probably the least deserved. A five-year ban for breaching the code of conduct of a cricket board that fails to demonstrate any high standards of its own is farcical. Pakistan's cricket board has lost all perspective if it believes this ban to be reasonable. A five-year ban will certainly end Shoaib's international career and, if it does that, the blame will rest as much with the cricket board's mismanagement as it does with Shoaib's unprofessionalism. This is another sad day for Pakistan cricket, which is now firmly establishing itself as an irrelevance on the international stage. Bravo Dr Ashraf and Co. Way to go.

	Pakistan have little international cricket over the next year, at the end of which Hair's contract runs out © Ian Jacobs / Cricinfo Ltd

It is the time of year for resurrections and Darrell Hair has risen again to delight his supporters and spread fear and anger among his enemies. What Hair's rehabilitation programme involved requires greater explanation from the ICC? But the decision to reinstate him has certainly reinforced the persecutory complex of Pakistan cricket.

I am sure Hair's reinstatement will be justified by some high principle but there is an alternative explanation. Hair is a habitual litigant. Pakistan have little international cricket over the next year, at the end of which Hair's contract runs out. From an employer's perspective it is far cleaner and more convenient to let the contract run its natural course instead of spending the next few years fighting a nasty legal case.

Any self-respecting CEO--be he a Speed or a Patel- would prefer the exit of least litigation. Mr Hair's return to elite umpiring, therefore, is more cop-out than conspiracy.

	Cricket Australia has failed to ensure the viability of the international tours programme, which is an abdication of leadership from the world's strongest cricket country © Getty Images

The fate of Australia's tour to Pakistan is sealed--or postponed as we are supposed to believe. I've already said my piece on why Australia should have toured Pakistan, and that argument still holds. Just ask Geoff Lawson, who has underlined the folly of the approach adopted by his fellow countrymen.

Ultimately, tours are the responsibility of the respective cricket boards. Cricket Australia has failed to ensure the viability of the international tours programme, which is an abdication of leadership from the world's strongest cricket country. As the general security situation in our world continues to deteriorate perhaps cricket will become extinct as countries refuse tours for unrelated risks? A truly global sport requires a stronger spine and broader vision.

The PCB is not blameless either. While Dr Ashraf and Co will state how powerless they are in the face of Cricket Australia's irrational decision, the decline of Pakistan cricket over this decade, both in performance and as spectacle, are contributory factors--although they never will be surfaced.

There is no value in a blindly patriotic defence of the PCB's position. Cricket is Pakistan's most important sport and public entertainment. Yet the PCB, through a combination of poor judgment and dubious ethics, has turned Pakistan cricket and the international team into something of a sideshow on the international stage. Some of this outcome is caused by distorted international perception but a major contributor is the chronic maladministration of cricket in Pakistan.

This is the latest in a long succession of wake-up calls for the PCB. Cricket in Pakistan needs urgent revival but it is not clear that the men in charge are fit to administer the shock therapy that is required.

	Why should cricket boards order you to play in IPL but punish you for choosing ICL? © Cricinfo Ltd

Consider me a Luddite but I'm getting rather fed up with this proliferation of cricket leagues. ICL, IPL, what the hell? However you look at it, these pantomimes are doing little more than milking the cash cow of cricket's popularity in India.

At some point, probably not too dissimilar to the point in last year's World Cup when most people stopped caring less, people in India--yes even India--will stop caring less. The advertisers, promoters, sponsors, and deal fixers will have to dream up a new concept. In fact, I've stopped caring less about these tournaments already, except for a mild curiosity about the prospects of the band of Pakistani rejects, better known as the Lahore Badshahs.

We should care, of course, because other than the glaring error of a stupid greed-inspired excess of cricket, there is a sinister element to this drama that we mustn't stop complaining about.

The obscene spectacle of cricket boards dictating to players about which league they can or cannot participate in has rightly been identified as an unfair restriction of trade. Why should cricket boards order you to play in IPL but punish you for choosing ICL? Why should a cricket board ban you from playing domestic cricket in your own country or any other country if you decided to trot out for the ICL?

The Pakistan Cricket Board, for example, has developed a myopic approach that seeks to prevent its cricketers from gaining experience in any domestic tournament other than its own miserable leagues and the fatuous IPL.

The cartel created by the cricket boards is an abuse of power. The arguments used to favour IPL and restrict cricketers if they disobey are simply the demoralising gestures of arrogant bullies. But you can't expect the ICC to help cricket boards see the light since cricket's governing body has such a restrictive attitude towards its own events, right down to dictating which brand of God's own water spectators are allowed to consume.

Indeed, this preference for the "official" IPL is a complete contradiction to the league's commercial aspirations. A true market perspective would allow both leagues to compete and allow the winner to be judged by the public. Instead, we have the dismal sight of the world's cricket boards justifying, enforcing, and licking their lips over the IPL monopoly while they condemn ICL as unnecessary, threatening, and illegal.

I am a big fan of Twenty20 cricket. I greatly enjoy the spectacle of cricket in India. But not like this. World Series Cricket propelled international cricketers towards professional salaries and rightly gave them some clout. This year's two-league circus is an exercise in corporate clout and shameless money-grabbing.

It is far too easy to wax lyrical about the noble spirit of cricket but the ICL/IPL fiasco is bringing out the worst in our modern game.

	© Getty Images

Dear Aussies,

We hear you swim with sharks yet you cannot walk the same earth as 160 million of your fellow men and women? Pakistan may be a country demonised by the world and dubbed a basket case by the world's media yet the ground reality is something very different.

Pakistan is a country struggling with its identity like many emerging countries--how to resolve Islam with the modern world?--but it is not a dangerous place, certainly not for international cricketers. Benazir Bhutto's death was a tragedy but a political assassination has no significance for Australians.

Many countries have toured Pakistan since your last refusal and all their players have returned home safely. Indeed, cricket is held in such esteem that it is equally loved by young women in designer shades and old men with unkempt beards. All the religious men I have ever met in Pakistan have loved cricket and relished the challenge of Australia.

Hence, your refusal seems strange to me, borne of a mental caricature of a country that bears no relationship with the "risks" that you will face. To me, this smacks of cultural imperialism, an unwillingness to properly understand and engage with the reality of a much poorer country.

Instead you wallow in the splendour of your rich world lifestyles. This whole approach is against the spirit of cricket, a game that has helped bridge social and political divisions and conflicts.

I fail to understand the risks you perceive you will be exposed to? As I have argued before, these risks are far smaller than driving a fast car, crossing the road, swimming with sharks or any of the extreme sports you are famous for indulging in. Cricketers have died or been seriously injured on the cricket field throughout the world while no cricketer has ever come to harm during Pakistan's "troubles".

Failing all that, if you do fear the bombers of Karachi more than the bombers of London, Colombo, or Mumbai then please stay at home but you should allow braver, hungrier, and more realistic cricketers to go in your place.

Surely the answer for Cricket Australia is to assemble a team of the willing and honour its commitment to international cricket? The alternative is an international game that becomes increasing divided by false fears into a game of the rich and poor. Cricket has always had greater significance than most sports, and your attitude does this great game a monumental disservice.

	The removal of Steve Bucknor from the Perth Test is a crushing defeat for the ICC © AFP

If historians ever want to mark the period when power in cricket shifted to South Asia then this is it. Just over a year ago Pakistan clashed with Darrell Hair, now India have done battle with umpire and match referee. Both Test matches might have been lost by the complainant but they recorded landmark off-field victories.

Any Pakistan fan will have considerable empathy with the plight of Indians. They believe their team to be victims of fundamental injustices and they are unwilling to tolerate a slur on their reputation. Pride matters more than the result.

Yet there are two issues we must not forget in the mayhem.

First, while it might be almost impossible to judge the veracity of the charge against Harbhajan Singh--is one man's word better than the other's?--calling a fellow cricketer a "monkey" goes way beyond sledging. It is a racist term and cannot be excused. I'm afraid that South Asians are as likely to be as racist as any another population group. It is a sad fact and we must accept it and condemn it. My sincere hope is that Harbhajan was misheard. An appeal seems a fair resolution at this stage.

Second, removing Steve Bucknor from the Perth Test is a crushing defeat for the ICC. Umpires make mistakes. If we strive for perfection then all decisions should be deferred to and made in consultation with the third umpire. If we value the unpredictability of human error in cricket then we must point out but tolerate Bucknor's errors. Either way, Bucknor did not force a Test match to be abandoned--Hair's failing--he is the latest in a long line of umpires to have inadvertently encouraged a result. Either way, ICC has set a worrying precedent by bowing to Indian pressure.

The process of South Asian, and especially Indian, rule in international cricket has taken some time to reach a conclusion but it has today. Just as the days of English and Australian governance of cricket called out for some balancing power, the dominance of the South Asians requires a similar counterweight.

This week's events are lamentable for any overtones of racism, just as they are lamentable for any overtones of corporate bullying. My greatest regret, however, is that the ICC has failed to develop systems of governance that prevent the hegemonic rule of one or two powers. In this the ICC is replicating the failings of almost every known international organisation. It is a giant stride towards irrelevance.

	This is a spirited South African team, which has outplayed Pakistan ever since it arrived © AFP

The bomb that greeted Benazir Bhutto's return to Pakistan was a tragedy for the people who died and their families. A cricket tour seems of minor importance when placed against the scale of death in Karachi but it was inevitable that it would be reassessed.

A bombing outside the Sheraton Hotel in Karachi once brought a premature end to a New Zealand tour, an unsurprising outcome since the team was staying at the hotel. More recently, South Africa abandoned a tour of Sri Lanka after a bombing in Colombo. Hence South Afirca might have been expected to return home, but their decision to stay is a triumph of good sense.

The bomb blast was highly targeted and to assume that the South Africans are now suddenly at greater risk is not logical. It would have been easy for the South Africans to curtail their tour and disappoint Pakistan cricket fans. Yet this is a spirited South African team, which has outplayed Pakistan ever since it arrived. The bubble of success must help but, whatever the reason, South Africa's players and administrators must be congratulated for their decision to see the tour through. The last thing that Pakistan requires at this moment of violent turmoil is international isolation.

	The Indian Cricket League offers the first real challenge to the official cricket structure since Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket © AFP

The Indian Cricket League offers the first real challenge to the official cricket structure since Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket. Compared with Packer's intergalactic venture, the ICL has begun with a minor constellation of international stars most of whom are Pakistani. WSC was fiercely resisted too but it helped international cricket develop quickly and improved the pay of top cricketers.

ICL will require more big stars if it is to have the same impact, and this is where the Indian and Pakistani cricket boards are applying thumbscrews. Players are being bullied to stick to official tournaments and events because the boards fear that a rival Asian league will undermine their power and reduce their revenues.

Players should be entitled to play in whatever league they wish, be it their official domestic cricket, county cricket, or the upstart ICL. Instead we have threats of bans and penalties.

This talk of bans is posturing. When Pakistan's cricket board realised it needed its Packer rebels they were brought back with desperate haste. The same self-serving approach will surely apply to reinstating Mohammad Yousuf for Test cricket and possibly even Inzamam and Abdul Razzaq, depending on results?

In the meantime, players have the right to play in the league they find most attractive without ruling themselves out of international selection. The response of the boards is one of fear, and if they were providing players and fans with a premier service the ICL would not be a threat. Their monopolistic positions have made the Asian cricket boards lazy and complacent. That's why I'm grateful that the ICL is causing a corporate headache. I don't see how it's bothering anybody else?

	Bob Woolmer's death: The matter should be laid to rest © Getty Images

Now that the Jamaican police have reversed their verdict on Bob Woolmer's death his family can complete the mourning process. And if anybody should sue for damages it should be them, although you suspect they will have too much dignity to begin down that road.

This blog doesn't have a great record of agreeing with Nasim Ashraf and disagreeing with Imran Khan but on this occasion I say Chairman Ashraf has made the right call. While a gut reaction does urge some kind of retribution for the way Pakistan's players were publicly vilified--and the British media, even some 'thoughtful' broadsheet writers, were some of the worst--the sensible response is to let the matter rest. If nothing else then out of respect for Bob's family.

Pakistan cricket needs to move on and those writers who spent a merry few weeks publicly maligning Pakistan cricketers, their character, and their country owe Pakistan cricket an apology. But I guess that is as likely as Cricinfo being bought by Disney--oops, miracles do happen.

	How about making Shahid Afridi the vice-captain for one-dayers? © Getty Images

Despite public proclamations of unity, the Pakistan board (PCB) will have to find a way of keeping their venerable "seniors" on board. One solution to a tussle between seniors is the "Two captain strategy" (one in one-day cricket and the other in Test cricket). But the PCB has sensibly concluded Malik can do both, in which case I propose the "Two vice-captain strategy." In a nutshell, it goes something like this:

1 An age-old technique for reining in a delinquent elder is to give him some responsibility.

2 Pakistan has a few of these, so why not appoint two vice-captains?

3 Younis Khan has ruled himself out of both positions. In any case there's no point him being deputy to Malik since he has decided not to captain Pakistan. Younis's moment has gone (he remains a certainty for my Test XI though).

4 Salman Butt, the champion of the adolescent vote, has enough on his plate re-establishing himself as an international cricketer to have an extra distraction. Salman's moment is yet to come.

5 Abdul Razzaq has captained but it was a performance that helped his opponents rather than his own team. Razzaq's moment was best forgotten.

6 Shoaib Akhtar should have contaminated his chances of winning a position of responsibility just as he contaminated his blood and urine with nandrolone. Shame, he might have been a fascinating leader. Shoaib's moment is wishful thinking.

7 Shahid Afridi should be in every one-day team but he might miss the cut in Test cricket. Give the gusto of Afridi a blast. It is the moment to make him one-day vice-captain.

8 Mohammad Yousuf should be in every Test team though half an eye on the next World Cup might render him quickly irrelevant in one-day cricket. Give the lofty elegance of Yousuf another try. It is the moment to make him Test vice-captain.

9 Once a future successor (it may be a long time in the future) is identified he should take over from Yousuf as the Test vice-captain. The successor's moment is not now.

10 Oh yes. Inzamam should do a Lara, announce a farewell Test in the next home series, and watch the boys play well without him. The big man deserves a parting moment of splendour.

	Captaincy? Oh get away from me! © AFP

Pakistan's cricketers must be quite confused. One minute they are appearing before a parliamentary committee, the next it's one set up by the PCB for reasons of "performance evaluation." In between there are ad-hoc committees on television, where the multiplication of channels has spawned an orgy of pontification and inquisition about the malign state of affairs in Pakistan cricket. Oh yes, and let's not forget the burning effigies.

In the wake of all this angst Younis Khan has declined the captaincy. Nothing predicts behaviour like behaviour, as any good psychiatrist will tell you, and Younis has already shown his reluctance to take on the captaincy unless he is perfectly happy. I wonder how somebody could refuse the leadership of his country at a moment such as this? When Younis turned it down before the Champions Trophy I received an email from Bob Woolmer that described how baffled he was by Younis's behaviour. And Bob always supported Younis.

I think Younis should have taken the job if it was offered to him. As Imran Khan said, why become vice-captain in the first place? But whatever the true reasons behind this
decision at least he had the good sense to clear the air and the battle between the rest can begin. What I can say with certainty is that this isn't a problem that will be resolved by the performance evaluation committee.

Many of us have been through this movie before. When you don't know what to do but want to look proactive, form a committee. I can't remember anything good ever coming out of one of these committees, largely because they comprise people whose opinion you couldn't care less about and who don't really know what they are doing. Consequently they fail to hit the mark or be taken seriously.

The current mobile inquest, the one supposedly designated to investigate performance, has only produced one piece of wisdom (the stuff PJ Mir came out with wasn't a revelation to anybody who has observed this team closely over the last year or so), and that wisdom was produced by somebody who hasn't appeared before the committee. Shaharyar Khan, the former diplomat and chairman of the PCB, asked a simple question: Why is Salim Altaf, a key player in the World Cup debacle, now sitting in judgment upon himself?

Well said, Mr Khan. His successor Dr Ashraf mumbled some platitudes about integrity in his first major press conference since his boss refused his resignation. Integrity isn't just a word to toss around to impress your listeners with, you have to earn it through your deeds and your actions. Salim Altaf's seat on the performance evaluation committee is a bad start to this age of accountability and integrity. Indeed, his committee is a touring three-ring circus whose conclusions will be consigned to the dustbin of history like all the other committees-cum-circuses that went before it.

What a cracking start. Things can only get better, you might think. But then again, that's what Tony Blair sang a decade ago and look what he did.

	Aaqib Javed looks to be a favourite and might be worth a punt with batting and fielding coaches in support © Getty Images

1 Choose a captain on merit not hierarchy, for positive reasons not negative. When Inzamam was made captain, I asked Ramiz Raja, then CEO of the PCB, why? He replied, with a shrug of his shoulders, that Inzamam was most senior and there was nobody else. Let's not make that mistake again (in other words don't appoint Mohammad Yousuf by default).

2 Choose a captain with energy, attitude, and ideas. Pakistan cricket made something of itself in the 1980s and 1990s because it adopted a positive mindset. Let's have no more lazy preparations, fearfulness, and cerebral vacancy.

3 Choose a captain who is capable of balancing his religious beliefs and his cricketing responsibilities. While Pakistan's players have every right to be as religious as they wish, they must know that their job is to win cricket matches. Nobody should be ostracised or made uncomfortable for not being as pious as the most pious member of the team. Religion, for cricketers, should be a private matter not a badge of honour.

4 Choose a coach who is dynamic and will complement the captain. The main problem identified by Bob Woolmer was the inability of Pakistan's players to learn. My view is that this has everything to do with the educational level of modern Pakistani cricketers. They don't need to be university graduates, of course, but a certain level of education would better equip them to learn in all areas of life. Bob's style was a gentle word here and a friendly nudge there but both the young undercooked and the old overcooked stars probably require some more direct advice.

5 Choose a coach who played no longer ago than in the last decade. Let's prefer new thinking over old.

6 Choose a coach and captain who are both untainted by the match-fixing controversy. Inzamam and Mushtaq Ahmed were both criticised by Judge Qayyum. Inzamam's statement that he was unaware of Qayyum's recommendations about Mushtaq is either a grand deception or jaw-dropping negligence. Let's make integrity an important criterion for selection of the captain and coach.

7 Choose long-term success over short-term gains. The pressure to succeed is huge but after such a dismal failure expectations will be low. Now is the time to patiently build a team to win the next World Cup and not get in a sweat of desperation about winning the next tournament in Malaysia.

8 Choose wisely 1: Although candidates are few in both areas, the potential to get it wrong is huge. The obvious choice for captain is Younis Khan but his first outing has made most people rather nervous that he might have flattered to deceive and doesn't quite have the good sense that a captain requires. His reported reluctance to take on the job doesn't bode well. A true leader would seize the captaincy and vow to pull everybody in line. Alternatively, Mohammad Yousuf is the wrong personality to lead, which only leaves Shoaib Malik and Shahid Afridi as contenders. Malik's time will come but Afridi would be an intriguing gamble.

9 Choose wisely 2: The list of genuine contenders for the coaching slot is even more limited. Imran Khan has promoted Aaqib Javed, whose record with the U19s is impressive. Intikhab Alam, the coach in Imran's era, has been tipped for the job but is surely out of his time? Mudassar Nazar has been mentioned in dispatches but his last stint was a flop. You can bet that Javed Miandad, another former coach, will be fancying a return. Assuming only Pakistanis will be interested after Bob Woolmer's death, two others worth considering are Rashid Latif and Abdul Qadir, who both run cricket academies. This is a tough one. How do you follow Bob? Indeed what's the rush? Aaqib looks to be favourite and might be worth a punt with batting and fielding coaches in support.

10 Choose in haste, repent at leisure. As I said, what's the rush? Pakistan's schedule is barren for the next few months, some nonsense called a Performance Evaluation Committee has already been created in haste and is conducting a haphazard mock-trial, and the shock of defeat and death is raw in the minds of players, management, and administrators. It would be best for the new appointments to be made in consultation with the new national selectors, since the current lot have tendered their resignations. But that degree of co-ordination would be asking too much.

	Nasim Ashraf has had a forgettable tenure so far © Getty Images

Today we hear that Mushy, the president not the assistant coach, has not accepted the resignation of his pal Nasim Ashraf. This is a diabolical decision. Ashraf has presided over the most disastrous period in the history of Pakistan cricket. Blessed by failure he is being asked to continue and finish the job. God help us. The job he gave the impression of performing was the destruction of Pakistan cricket.

Following the lead of his own boss, President Mushy, he appointed his own pals and acquaintances to key PCB positions. No wonder Pakistan cricket is in a mess.

Ashraf has presided over the dumb reign of Younis Khan as "dummy" captain, the doping fiasco, Waqar's dismissal and the horse-trading that lead to Mushy the coach being appointed, the injury and selection chaos, the unfettered power of Inzamam and the sidelining of Woolmer (on this I quote Bob: "Since the resignation of the last Chairman any views I have had have not been wanted! The new Chairman certainly has his own way"), and a failure to deliver the constitution that he solemnly promised.

What's more he has annoyed the team and management by hanging out with them on tour like some sort of star-struck groupie, worse still a groupie who has got involved with team matters. In short, I hold him responsible for orchestrating this disaster.

President Mushy's decision does make sense from one viewpoint, however. Pakistan has too long tolerated power without responsibility. If Ashraf were to be seen to be taking responsibility for his cock-ups then the president, in his position of patron of Pakistan cricket, might have to accept some responsibility too. Now we couldn't have that could we?

A while ago I said it wasn't time to abandon hope. I never abandon hope but when it comes to Pakistan cricket I've never felt closer to it.

	The cricket has finished but the controversies haven't for Pakistan © Getty Images

1 I know Bob. I find it difficult to believe that he is racist, even if he is would he call somebody a "Blackie"? The only people I've ever heard use that word I'm afraid are people from South Asia. It reminds of the time I was done for a driving offence and the policemen read out a statement that he said he had taken from me which used language I knew I would never use.

2 I know the sports editor of Dawn. I find it difficult to believe that he would publish a piece without something to back it up. The quality of Dawn's sports pages has improved no end over the last eight months or so.

3 I wonder then about Dawn's sources and assume that there can't be many people who were privy to that conversation and could state with conviction - genuine or not - that a racist remark was made. If the source turns out to be unreliable or untrustworthy then Dawn better apologise, and quickly.

4 To accuse a national coach of making a racist remark to one of his players is a most serious allegation. It is the kind of allegation that means at least one head will roll, the person who made the remark or the source of the claim, assuming that it has to be somebody inside the Pakistan camp.

5 It's also time that another head rolled. The shambles in Pakistan cricket has become a national disgrace. Who will take responsibility? Dr Ashraf or Mr Altaf? Perhaps one or both of them? It's time gentlemen. But guess what? I bet neither of them do.

Darrell Hair is at it again. Creating a fuss, drawing attention to himself, and generally displaying the indignation of the most righteous man in the world of cricket. But self-righteous is the word that best describes Mr Hair, because the majority of people do not share his view of how we was treated.

Anybody who was involved with events at The Oval knows that Mr Hair was the man responsible for the ball-tampering verdict against Pakistan, Mr Hair was the man who stopped the match from being resumed despite requests from cricket boards and the ICC, and it was Mr Hair who was the senior umpire taking responsibility for the decision-making.

Indeed Mr Hair has upset the Pakistan team with his arrogant manner prior to The Oval, as well as angering India and Sri Lanka. For Mr Hair to now claim that he was the victim of racism is a further affront to the people he has already offended.

Perhaps I should sue Mr Hair for racism? At the press conference following last year's ball-tampering hearing he refused to answer a question I put to him but answered the same question when asked by a white journalist. Frankly, Mr Hair's obnoxious attitude towards me didn't bother me in the slightest, by contrast it was highly revealing. Indeeed, several senior journalists came up to me afterwards to make this very point.

There comes a time when you should draw a line under events, accept where you went wrong, and move on. It's too simplistic to say that Mr Hair had a good record for getting umpiring decisions right. That becomes meaningless when you have a track record of handling major issues badly.

Mr Hair deserved the judgement he received from the ICC, and I'm sure I'm not alone in growing tired of his self-righteousness.

	'Dr Nasim Ashraf promised: "By the start of the new year, I want the board to turn a new leaf and work under the new constitution." Where is it?' © AFP

Now is the time for anguish, pain, inquisition. When cricketers underperform we see their sins laid before us, especially if we've managed to acquire ourselves a high-definition widescreen television. Yet it's the men who scurry around in the shadows that worry me. Most Pakistan supporters had hoped for a regime that would stabilise the international team. Events have conspired against the current cricket board, of course, but the last few months have produced more questions than answers. Here are some issues that are troubling me:

1 Dr Nasim Ashraf promised: "By the start of the new year, I want the board to turn a new leaf and work under the new constitution." Where is it?

2 He also said: "We intend to plan for it [the World Cup] in detail. I am fully intent on making the selection process foolproof." Hmm, perhaps "approved by fools" would have been more accurate? The handling of Shoaib Akhtar, Shabbir Ahmed, Azhar Mahmood, and Shahid Afridi, for example, could hardly be interpreted as foolproof.

3 Waqar Younis. An enlightening exchange between Salim Altaf, director of PCB operations, and Waqar on GEO television was a public relations triumph for Waqar. Altaf, who revealed himself to be a man mired in bureaucracy and unwilling to address Waqar's complaints directly or in detail, implied that Waqar had been employed by the board for just under a year without any appraisal or review of his performance. Shameful management, I'd say. No wonder then that Waqar's role drifted so far from his original job description to render it irrelevant. Yet Altaf clung to that original job description as if variation from it was impossible and used it to justify the board's final treatment of Waqar.

My view is that the board handled Waqar's ouster in a crass and insulting manner. By Waqar's own admission, Bob Woolmer and Inzamam-ul Haq both preferred to have Mushtaq Ahmed as assistant coach. But on the evidence of the first two crash-wallop games in South Africa, Pakistan's fast bowlers are going backwards rather than forwards.

Indeed, to say that Waqar would not be useful for one-day games is mindboggling for Pakistan supporters who saw him become one of the greatest one-day bowlers ever, particularly in pressure situations. Not just that, he was a pioneer.

4 Mushtaq Ahmed. I want to understand how one minute Justice Qayyum's inquiry can be used as one of the reasons to keep Mushtaq out of the coaching set up but is then conveniently forgotten a few months later? Where's the intergity in that about turn?

5 Appointments by acquaintance. It's not always wise to protest too much. The PCB has got into a peculiar habit of refuting criticism by penning rebuttals in newspapers. One such rebuttal denied a charge of nepotism in appointments at the board and refuted an earlier piece published in Dawn, Pakistan's most highly-respected newspaper.

I made some inquiries of my own and discovered that senior Pakistani journalists are convinced Ahsan Malik, the new head of media at the PCB, is closely related to Nasim Ashraf. Malik was one of the first appointments by Ashraf's regime. Now my view is that it is fine to appoint a relative provided they happen to be the best person for the job. Unfortunately, the jury is out on Malik. And now that the board has publicly denied this relationship--in a piece curiously penned by Malik himself--it has got itself into a potentially disastrous situation. The disaster would be this: If the two are indeed related, which senior journalists insist that they are, then I do not see how either of them can remain in post having denied that they are related to each other?

To add to the sequence of doubtful recruitments, the PCB appointed PJ Mir, a friend of both Ashraf and President Musharraf, as its media manager for the World Cup.

Where's the independence in these appointments? Not much if critics are to be believed.

6 One of the latest media brainwaves is for the PCB to help newspapers send journalists on foreign tours by introducing a "cost-sharing" scheme. Excuse me, in case I've forgotten how journalism works, but anything that compromises the independence of those journalists is unacceptable. In a poor country like Pakistan, he who pays the piper really does call the tune. Most journalists in Pakistan do not enjoy the power, freedom, or the pay of their colleagues in richer countries, and the PCB's initiative is not one of liberation but of media management.

7 With each new PCB regime we are promised merit, ethics, and transparency. Nasim Ashraf's is no different. He also said he wanted to be judged by performances and not mere words. Well, I'm afraid that both the words and performances are causing concern.

Pakistan fans, who care passionately about their favourite game, want some answers. This is not just about the World Cup--although it partly is--but it is about something far deeper in Pakistani society: Whether or not we can trust our major institutions?

If the PCB were to address these concerns I would be delighted to share its responses here. Don't hold your breath though, this is a cricket board already with much to answer.

You might wonder why Pak Spin has strayed into foreign territory but I have two dogs in this fight. First, I'm a British Asian like Monty. Second, calling somebody a "stupid Indian" is abuse that crosses national boundaries simply because it is more about colour, culture, and religion than it is about nationality. If the Australian who abused Monty had called him "stupid" or a "stupid Brit/Pom/Steelback" he might have just about got away with it. But the reference to Monty's Indian roots is a reference to race and I'm afraid, Mr Sutherland, that it is a racist comment.

On the same day that the UK minister for sport urged a war on racism, in the same sport that, according to the ICC, has a zero tolerance policy towards racism, and on the back of an embarrassing tour by South Africa, it is highly improper for the chief executive of Cricket Australia to dismiss the racist taunts at Monty Panesar as "not too much racist."

James Sutherland owes Monty and the England team an apology. He also owes the ICC an explanation. Let's hope one is demanded of him.

It seems awful to celebrate the end of anybody's career but today's news from Mumbai will bring some cheer to Pakistan fans reeling from the loss of their two best bowlers. The ICC's verdict will also cheer Indian and Sri Lankan fans, all of whom have suffered by Darrell Hair's finger. The Australian umpire has been brazen and unapologetic about his role in the first forfeited match in the history of Test cricket. The rights and wrongs of this incident have been debated to death but one point stands out above all others for me: no official is important enough to end a game when all the players and spectators want it to continue. Hair's end is a triumph for Inzamam but also for cricket as entertainment. Let's never again forget what really matters.

In the wake of the Champions Trophy debacle, Pakistan cricket is besieged with cries for change. Yes, change is essential but a knee-jerk reaction will further harm Pakistan's chances of winning the World Cup. There are calls for wholesale changes in the team, as well as calls from the head of the Karachi City Cricket Association for the sacking of Bob Woolmer. Rashid Latif has bizarrely blamed the failure of the Asian teams on the presence of foreign coaches.

The sense of crisis has been deepened by Nasim Ashraf calling for a seminar of senior cricketers to help turn round Pakistan's fortunes. As many readers of this blog will know, seminars of the kind proposed by the PCB are seldom any good for producing solutions or new ideas. The gathering of a gang of squabbling ex-cricketers, each believing he has a monopoly on the truth, sounds to me like an exercise in stakeholder management rather than a genuine way forward. Indeed, the solutions are pretty obvious and should reside within the heads of the team captain and coach. And, lest we forget, Pakistan's World Cup prospects were shining bright after the first three one-day internationals in England.

To my mind, it is too late to start talking of changing the coach and captain, it will be suicidally late after the West Indies series. Pakistan's best chance is to stick with the leadership combination that had lifted it to the top three in both forms of the game. One nuance might have been to appoint Younis Khan as one-day captain, indeed it is something I advocated, but after some wonky decisions before and during the one-day series coupled with a drop in form, it has to be best for Ashraf to sit down with Bob and Inzy and say: "You're the men for this important mission. You have my confidence. Tell me your plan and let's implement it." Younis's time will come.

Great leadership is all about appointing people with skill and trusting them to deliver for you. It isn't about undermininig their authority by running a pointless national roadshow on how those guys might do their jobs better, which is what it will inevitably turn out to be.

The PCB only has to read the views of fans to know what the solutions are, and they are not very different from the ones people like Imran Khan have been peddling for years. A competitive, regional domestic game. A properly functioning national academy (not one that is closed down almost before it has started). A professional, independent cricket board. And a mindset that says let's dump dead tracks and let's prepare some that are full of life and bounce. If they can be produced in Mohali there can be no excuse in Lahore.

And perhaps a novel idea: Let's put some faith in the ideas of the experts we have hired. Why not act on Bob Woolmer's calls for concrete pitches to prepare our batsmen against bouncy tracks? Why not act on proposals that the PCB has received for long term planning and development of Pakistan cricket? Why not support our players, captain, and coach in public (whatever the private reservations) rather than spreading silly stories about their nocturnal activities, religious orthodoxy, and holidays? When this is how the world of Pakistan cricket works it makes me conclude that some of the influential people running it (and I suspect they are still in post) would rather act out their own petty prejudices than create something of beauty that would bring joy to millions.

For let's be clear, the failure of Mohali, and Old trafford, and Perth, is not the failure of a player, captain, or coach. It is the failure of a whole system--and one that has always got away with it because of the talents of those players, captains, and coaches who have served it over the years. If Nasim Ashraf really wants to make a mark, he should stop the nurturers and the servents of that failed system from getting away with it any more. It's clear that the people that really matter, the fans, will not tolerate it any more.

This has been a great debate on Younis Khan’s volte face, and it is clear that people on all sides of the debate are genuinely concerned about the future of Pakistan cricket and unwilling for the cricket board to be anything less than professional.

It is also clear that Younis had tremendous support to become Inzamam’s successor and he has created serious doubts among many of his supporters about his fitness to lead Pakistan. But there remains much good will towards Younis and I share that.

He has always lead Pakistan well and usually struck me as a composed, brave, and jovial character. Let’s hope his hasty resignation—which I still maintain was a dumb way to register his protest—is a moment of madness that will not be repeated. But as I learned when I worked as a psychiatrist, “nothing predicts behaviour like behaviour.”

As for the PCB, it’s hard to harbour any conviction about its fitness for purpose. We will have to judge the new leadership by its deeds and already the decision-making has polarised opinion. Talat Ali has added to concerns by getting off to a bad start—at least Zaheer Abbas knew which player was which. And Younis not knowing that Inzamam would not be available for the final, if Pakistan makes it, was another managerial gaffe.

Finally—before we move on as many of you have rightly suggested—Younis Khan is being freely compared to Imran Khan in his leadership and his desire to do it his way. Well, Imran showed his real strength when he had also shown that he was an indispensable captain of Pakistan. Younis has some way to go before he matches Imran as a leader. Indeed, he isn’t even yet the proper captain, let alone indispensable. History rarely looks favourably on nearly men.

PS I think we’ve had enough comment on this one.

What on earth is Younis Khan up to? © AFP

Last week was climactic even for Pakistan.

We now have a board chairman (Nasim Ashraf—I'm humble enough to drop the title Dr, why isn't he?) who is a pal of General Musharaf. Anything else going for him?

We have a captain (Younis Khan) who behaved in the most inexplicable manner in resigning unceremoniously one minute and snatching the crown once Shaharyar Khan had gone—and don't be kidded by his supporters who suggest this was some kind of ingenious brinkmanship.

What Younis Khan did was dumb, dumb, dumb.

We have an ex-Asian Bradman and ex-team manager (Zaheer Abbas) blaming Inzamam for the Oval fiasco when I know the PCB hierarchy present did at the very least tacitly support the protest.

And we have a great county cricketer and one-time great international cricketer (Mushtaq Ahmed) dumped from being assistant coach because he is a pal of Inzamam's. The excuse that Mushy wasn't entirely cleared by Justice Qayyum is a red herring: Mushy's done the job before and if Qayyum didn't want him involved in Pakistan cricket he should have banned him like he did Salim Malik.

I can understand Mushy's anger. You don't hire somebody and then fire him before he's had a chance to show his worth. Is everyone that Inzy likes out, and everyone that Younis likes in? That's the kind of nonsense Pakistan cricket needs to get away from. This dramatic decision-making leads me to worry about Nasim Ashraf. I hope I'm wrong.

Younis Khan's ill-judged resignation leads me to worry about him too. And that's where I definitely hope I'm wrong—I've always thought he'd make a great captain. But all that he has achieved so far is put the heat on his captaincy in the Champions Trophy.

The question is will he fly or fry?