Ambar wrote:ICC will never ban Pakistan no matter how serious/how frequent the infractions.Cricket is not football,it is played by less than dozen countries and much of the revenue generation comes from S.Asia.170m cricket fans is a huge chunk to lose and if anything the oligarchs in BCCI /affiliated leagues and cricket boards in India will vociferously lobby to save the Pakis.
Ambar,
I agree with you that it's unlikely that ICC will formally ban Pakistan. However, very few teams will play with it. Nobody is going to tour Pakistan in the foreseeable future. And while the Pakis may go to Australia, Sri Lanka and even England for tours, they will be tainted matches.
Ultimately it's really not about the 170 million cricket fans in Pakistan. It's about their purchasing power. The money is not in gate turnstiles, it's in the advertising, both in stadia as well as on TV. And 80-90 per cent of that is generated in India and the majority of the rest is in ANZ, South Africa and England. From a pure business perspective IMO the cricketing world wouldn't even notice the absence of the Pakis.
However, for political reasons various entities within the ICC will try to prop up the nation. The English as a useful leverage against India. The Sharad Pawar types as useful leverage against white domination etc. In short true to its nature even within the cricketing world they will survive as a co**om for use by others when needed.
But wait, what an apt name for the Paki cricket boss. His surname in one word sums up the state of the game in that country! The One and Only works in mysterious ways but He/She/It does have a wicked sense of humour.