Mark Butcher has called on ECB and Cricket Australia leaders to intervene in worsening relations between the PCB and BCCI over ICC tournaments.
Speaking on the Wisden Cricket Weekly podcast, Butcher said it was on all of the key stakeholders in world cricket to help sporting relations between the boards get back on "an even keel".
"This is not something that's come wildly out of the blue," said Butcher. "The Champions Trophy was a dress rehearsal. It's a very difficult thing to move away from the financial clout of this match. I think what you're asking is, is the ICC the right organisation to be running these events and running global cricket? You could very easily put an argument together that says no, there's a better way of doing it. But what you can't do is replace the interest and the financial clout of this particular game. No matter who's running it this game is always going to be the biggest one.
"I don't know what's been going on behind the scenes. The leaders of the ECB, the Richards [Gould and Thompson], Cricket Australia, they might be on the phone or on a plane as we speak trying to get all of this stuff sorted out behind closed doors. But it would appear, given what's happened in the very recent past, this sort of thing should have been foreseen or at least addressed with the knowledge that this was likely to rear up again."
The Pakistan Government stated their intention for the Pakistan team to boycott their group game against India in the upcoming T20 World Cup over the weekend. The move is in response to the ICC's refusal to allow Bangladesh to play their tournament matches outside of India, after the BCB raised security concerns following the BCCI's instruction to Kolkata Knight Riders to remove Mustafizur Rahman from their squad.
Butcher: There are double standards everywhere
Comparisons have been drawn between the Bangladesh T20 World Cup affair and India's refusal to travel to Pakistan for the Champions Trophy last year. India played all of their matches, including the final, in the UAE, raising questions of a double standard in how the two sides' requests were treated by the ICC.
"There are double standards everywhere and they need to be addressed by the entire cricketing community," said Butcher. "Particularly those ones that hold a high echelon in terms of the finances and in terms of the power. India are obviously No.1, and there's no arguing with that whatsoever, but then England and Australia sit behind that and, at the moment, they're very very quiet around this whole situation.
"If sport is to do it's job, and in my view – maybe I'm an old hippie – but in my view sport is the thing that cuts across lines of politics and religion and all the rest of it and is supposed to be the thing that brings people together, in order to get to a situation whereby sport might actually be doing some good as opposed to being used as a nice stick to wield against your enemies. That's what needs to happen. All of the other stakeholders need to get together to try and put a stop to this and allow sporting relations between these two super-powers in the subcontinent to get back to an even keel."
The T20 World Cup will begin on February 7, with the India-Pakistan clash set to take place in Colombo on February 15.
Follow Wisden for all cricket updates, including live scores, match stats, quizzes and more. Stay up to date with the latest cricket news, player updates, team standings, match highlights, video analysis and live match odds.
