ICC's role, with reference to Pakistan, has to be to allow willing nations to tour © AFP

India's unfortunate decision to cancel their tour of Pakistan is a serious blow to cricket in South Asia. The decision is a political one, and one I believe to be incorrect. Perpetrators of atrocities will be encouraged by the political divisions they create. Disharmony and conflict sustain them.

Cricketers and cricket fans have often shown that the regional instinct for friendship is greater than the desire to destroy each other. The only glimmer of hope is that the Indian government sees the wisdom in friendship but has judged the mood of its people will not tolerate a sporting encounter with Pakistan just yet.

As appalling as India's decision is to Pakistan fans, Sri Lanka's quick acceptance is a boost. The state of Pakistan cricket is such that it must seek willing opposition at home, abroad, and on neutral venues. International cricket must become the rule again and not the exception.

All of which makes Haroon Lorgat's reference to a security inspection on behalf of ICC officials even more surprising. ICC's role, with reference to Pakistan, has to be to allow willing nations to tour. The world of international cricket is already too small to bear the loss of emerging nations like Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, and established ones like Pakistan.

The security survey for officials would also have been an unprecedented move by ICC, adding strength to the argument that the international cricket community is displaying double standards in its treatment of Pakistan. Little wonder, then, that the ICC media machine rapidly issued clarifications of Lorgat's comment, which reads perfectly clearly in its original form.

Pakistan cricket is in a mess but so is ICC, because a shrinking cricket world means that it is hostage to the whims of one or two powerful members. The myopic view is to bend to that power, which is a dangerous mistake. But the ICC has yet to demonstrate that it has a viable long-term strategy to allow international cricket to flourish or the courage to stand up to its most dominant members.

ICC's main hope as an organisation is to grow its membership. Instead, it is an organisation stricken by its failure to ensure that its least powerful or least desirable constituents are not marginalised.

	Cricket is a shared passion and pleasure in a region that is consumed by an overwhelming misery © AFP

Cricket is a shared love of the people of South Asia but we share much more than cricket. I say this on my return from a conference of the South Asian Health Foundation, a UK charitable organisation that seeks to improve the health of the South Asian community. It is an organisation that I am fond of, and not just because I am one of the patrons. Each gathering includes many representatives of all South Asian nations and religions, yet we are never divided by nationality or religion. Instead, we stand united in seeking a better life for people who share our background.

This easy unity fills me with hope that even this horrendous week cannot destroy what the people of South Asia share, for what we have in common far outweighs our differences. Outside the fevered atmosphere of South Asia, the passion that surrounds those differences seems nonsensical and horribly misguided. Indeed, all South Asian nations are now victims of barbaric violence. We fight a common enemy: the murderers who seek to divide us.

What has cricket to do with this? Everything. Cricket, as my friend Saad Shafqat once wrote, is the magic glue that binds South Asia. It is a shared passion and pleasure in a region that is consumed by an overwhelming misery. Cricket has helped intitiate dialogue and collaboration on previous occasions when war was looming--and we must cling to every prospect of dialogue and collaboration because a conflict between nuclear neighbours brings the dread of unthinkable consequences.

Hence, I add my voice to the passion of Javed Miandad and the wisdom of Sambit Bal. India's upcoming tour of Pakistan, far from being an irrelevance, is fundamental to the dialogue and collaboration that will defeat those who seek to plunge the region into a devastating conflict.

The tour should go ahead. United we stand, divided we are lost.