The Indian Cricket League offers the first real challenge to the official cricket structure since Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket © AFP

The Indian Cricket League offers the first real challenge to the official cricket structure since Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket. Compared with Packer's intergalactic venture, the ICL has begun with a minor constellation of international stars most of whom are Pakistani. WSC was fiercely resisted too but it helped international cricket develop quickly and improved the pay of top cricketers.

ICL will require more big stars if it is to have the same impact, and this is where the Indian and Pakistani cricket boards are applying thumbscrews. Players are being bullied to stick to official tournaments and events because the boards fear that a rival Asian league will undermine their power and reduce their revenues.

Players should be entitled to play in whatever league they wish, be it their official domestic cricket, county cricket, or the upstart ICL. Instead we have threats of bans and penalties.

This talk of bans is posturing. When Pakistan's cricket board realised it needed its Packer rebels they were brought back with desperate haste. The same self-serving approach will surely apply to reinstating Mohammad Yousuf for Test cricket and possibly even Inzamam and Abdul Razzaq, depending on results?

In the meantime, players have the right to play in the league they find most attractive without ruling themselves out of international selection. The response of the boards is one of fear, and if they were providing players and fans with a premier service the ICL would not be a threat. Their monopolistic positions have made the Asian cricket boards lazy and complacent. That's why I'm grateful that the ICL is causing a corporate headache. I don't see how it's bothering anybody else?

	Only last year Mohammad Yousuf broke a record belonging to Viv Richards © Getty Images

1 Only last year Mohammad Yousuf broke a record belonging to Viv Richards. Now Yousuf is no Richards but he is the closest this Pakistan team will get. The best cricketers can perform in any version of the game and Yousuf is a top international batsman. His batting powers more than compensate for any fielding shortcomings. I'm baffled, he's shocked, and the selectors already sound confused.

2 Yousuf's replacement is Misbah-ul Haq, a player who often promises much in domestic cricket but fails to look the part on the international arena. As my colleague, Osman Samiuddin suggested, if a new batsman was required it should have been a new hope not an old has-been.

3 I've already said my piece about Abdul Razzaq. He has been a player in decline as a bowler and fielder but his batting has mostly held up until recent months. He can be a hurricane in limited overs cricket but the selectors have condemned this twister to the touchline.

This new era promised merit and transparency. Instead the selectors have become the killers of careers, unfortunately for reasons unknown.

	A year ago contemplating a Pakistan Twenty20 team without Razzaq would have been beyond reason © Getty Images

Over the years he has developed into a destructive batsman in one-day cricket, left leg planted out outside leg stump followed by a true swing of his blade. And it is this assault technique that has kept him on the international scene for the decline in his bowling--from pacer to trundler--has rendered him impotent in Tests.

Pakistan's cricket fans have mostly hoped that Razzaq would pull it around. Despite his failure at Middlesex, his spinach-induced illness, and his infuriating bowling you imagined that Razzaq would wake from his reverie. He might still but at this moment he seems further from redemption than he has ever been.

A year ago contemplating a Pakistan Twenty20 team without Razzaq would have been beyond reason. A few months ago he was being talked of as a possible captain or vice-captain. Now he is a liability, a donkey in the field and a work-horse with the ball.

Still, I find it hard to conclude that The Razzler's ballistic batting would not be an asset in the Wham Bam of a Twenty20 encounter. Surely his ecstatic batting will return even though his bowling is miserable and his fielding is joyless?

Razzaq has shown enough thrashing ability in his career to merit a trip to the Twenty20 World Cup. But if the rumours from the Pakistan camp are true then the ruin of the Razzler may prove to be a calamity for Pakistan's chances.