Now that Pakistan have taken the expected U-turn and are playing India on Sunday in the World T20, it might be tempting to declare that all’s well that ends well. But the realisation that yet another country can resort to blackmailing the International Cricket Council may not be such good news for the sport. Bangladesh, dropped from the tournament, probably got the most from the negotiations, but administrators have long memories and there is no telling who gets their comeuppance from whom.

In 2012, the Woolf Report — commissioned by the ICC and mostly ignored — said that “Cricket is a great game. It deserves to have governance, including management and ethics, worthy of the sport. This is not the position at the present time.” Nor is it at this present time.

Governing bodies of international sports have to understand diplomacy and not allow a problem to fester till it teeters on the brink of unsolvability as national pride and personal egos enter the mix.

In the end, money decided. Pakistan took the pragmatic view,........

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