An opportunity to bury a dead horse

Sometimes crisis provides opportunity. While one can be fully sympathetic towards Pakistani cricket fans, it is important to see the postponement of the Champions' Trophy in a wider perspective. This is a useless, pointless tournament that nobody really wants – not players, not sponsors, not television viewers. The Champions' Trophy is an unwanted extra on the international cricket stage, irrespective of whether it is played in Pakistan or India, Australia or England.

With the Champions' Trophy gone, I suspect the Twenty20 Champions' League or some such IPL-inspired blockbuster will rush in to take its place. It will mean better business for the men who run global cricket and probably keep the players – who wouldn't mind extra money – happy too. Perhaps it will also allow the international calendar to be spread out this winter. With some juggling of dates, the England tour of India could now see three Test matches rather than two. This will gladden purists.

The point I am trying to make is, given the advance of T20 and the fact that Test cricket will always be the classical version of the game, the space and indulgence for long, spread-out ODI jamborees such as the Champions' Trophy is going to contract. Rather than flog a dead horse, let the ICC bury the Champions' Trophy altogether. As soon as conditions are deemed suitable in that country, Pakistan can be compensated with other tournaments or tours.

Rather than pussyfooting and pretending it can restrict T20 – or, on the other hand, that it is doing enough to preserve the sanctity of Test cricket and the integrity of proper rather than truncated series – the ICC needs to get realistic. The international cricket calendar is simply too crowded and needs to be cleaned up.

It is clear as crystal that the game's stakeholders – fans and sponsors alike – cannot sustain two mega-sized ODI tournaments within two years of each other, not with T20 as the new elephant in the room. The ODI World Cup is obviously non-negotiable; therefore it must be the Champions' Trophy that heads for the guillotine.

It would be so much better if the ICC faced up to facts and was honest in its public statements. Does anybody quite expect the Champions' Trophy to be played in October 2009 – whether in Pakistan or anywhere else? In June 2009, the T20 world cup will be played in England. Already it is expected to crowd out endorsement money and television interest.

Does it do justice to the world's leading cricketers to expect them to play a second global tournament roughly three months later? What about the viewers? Won't a fatigue factor inevitably set in?