Former England captain Michael Atherton recommended the International Cricket Council (ICC) to re-evaluate "arranging" matches between India and Pakistan in the wake of the men's Asia Cup. Despite India's victory over Pakistan in the summit match, the eight-team tournament, will always be remembered for all the wrong reasons.
Following the Pahalgam terror attack and Operation Sindoor, animosity between the two teams spilled onto the cricket field. On September 14, Suryakumar Yadav-led India refused to shake hands with their Pakistani counterparts, which was the first flashpoint.
Following this, during the Super Four match against India, Haris Rauf, Faheem Ashraf, and Sahibzada Farhan made contentious and offensive gestures. Mohsin Naqvi, the interior minister of Pakistan also the chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and the Asian Cricket Council (ACC), was set to present the trophy to India, but India refused to accept it.
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Atherton stated in his Times column that while there may be political and commercial justifications for India and Pakistan matches being scheduled at ICC events, the time has come to put an end to this practice because of the two nations' worsening ties.
“Despite its scarcity (maybe, in part, because of its scarcity), it is a fixture that carries huge economic clout, one of the main reasons why the broadcast rights for ICC tournaments are worth so much — roughly $3 billion for the most recent rights cycle in 2023-27,” he wrote.
“Due to the relative decline in the value of bilateral matches, ICC events have grown in frequency and importance, and so the India and Pakistan fixture is crucial to the balance sheets of those who would not otherwise have any skin in the game," he added.
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Notably, since 2013, India and Pakistan have competed against one another at every ICC event.
India and Pakistan played each other three times in the 2025 Asia Cup, with India winning all three matches. But according to Atherton, the two nations' cricketing relationship has now "clearly become a proxy for broader tensions". Additionally, he criticised the ICC for setting up "tournament fixtures" between these two teams for financial benefits.
“If cricket was once the vehicle for diplomacy, it is now, clearly, a proxy for broader tensions and for propaganda. There is little justification, in any case, for a serious sport to arrange tournament fixtures to suit its economic needs and now that the rivalry is being exploited in other ways, there is even less justification for it,” Atherton wrote.
“For the next broadcast rights cycle, the fixture draw before ICC events should be transparent and if the two teams do not meet every time, so be it,” he added.
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