Champions Trophy tug of war shows India’s ‘stranglehold’ on cricket

The 50-over tournament returns in February after an eight-year absence, but India’s long-standing refusal to visit arch-rival Pakistan has forced the hosts to forgo some of their obligations.

India will instead play matches on neutral grounds, the International Cricket Council said on Thursday after weeks of wrangling, a decision that reflects the ease with which India can impose its will on the game.

Under the agreement, Pakistan will also participate in upcoming ICC tournaments hosted by India in other countries, which are yet to be decided.

“Any market or sector heavily dependent on a single competitor will be distorted as a result,” journalist and author Gideon Haigh of the site Cricket Et Al told AFP.

“The same applies to sport, unless it has strong and independent governance,” he added. “Cricket obviously doesn’t have that.”

This month, Indian cricket boss Jay Shah took office as the latest president of the International Cricket Council, the third Indian to head the world governing body in the past decade.

At 36, he is the youngest person to have held this position.

India’s supremacy comes from the outsized revenues of its cricket board, which is flush with cash from its role as custodian of the most popular sport in the world’s most populous country.

The Indian Premier League alone has generated billions in revenue since its inception in 2008, making the country’s cricket board one of the sport’s richest governing bodies.

“Jay Shah’s move to the ICC strengthens India’s grip on the game,” Lawrence Booth, editor of the Wisden Almanack, told AFP.

“Everyone recognizes his financial contribution to cricket, but it is important now that Shah exercises his final position of power with responsibility and ensures that the sport as a whole is taken care of.”

Instead, the Shah’s ascension coincided with the second instance of Pakistan being forced to partially relinquish its hosting responsibilities in as many years.

A similar outcome followed a recurring dispute last year over the hosting of the 50-over Asia Cup, where India’s refusal to play across the border forced changes drastic changes in the tournament months before its start.

Pakistan eventually had to relinquish hosting rights to most of the matches, with India playing their matches in Sri Lanka, where they won the final.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars against each other since their separation from the subcontinent in 1947.

The intensity of their rivalry has often been reflected in the affairs of cricket.

But relations have been particularly frosty over the past decade, since Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power.

Modi’s main political ally and right-hand man is India’s powerful interior minister, Amit Shah, father of the new ICC chief, Jay Shah.

India has not played a bilateral series against Pakistan since Modi’s election, officially for security reasons, given Pakistan’s history of militant attacks on the sport.

Pakistan suspended hosting international cricket after a deadly attack on the visiting Sri Lankan team’s bus in Lahore in 2009, but resumed hosting in 2015.

Since then, all the major cricketing nations have returned to visit the country, with the exception of India.

Any cricket match between India and Pakistan is one of the most watched events on the global sporting calendar.

But the standoff means the two countries now only face each other in international tournaments, including at the ODI World Cup in India last year.

Unlike India, Pakistan crossed the border to play.

“In my opinion, ICC should deny hosting rights to both countries until these issues between them are resolved,” former Pakistan wicketkeeper Rashid Latif told Indian media recently.

“Why aren’t India and Pakistan banned? Because the ICC has a lot at stake on them.”

As with last year’s Asia Cup, India’s refusal to travel to Pakistan for the Champions Trophy angered the hosts, who struggled for weeks until they were forced to compromises.

But Pakistan has failed to find sympathy and support from other cricket-playing countries, notably England and Australia, which would risk antagonizing India.

“They’re not going to waste their limited ammunition on a cause that doesn’t directly concern them,” Haigh said.

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