To the outsider, the constant arguing and squabbling can seem confusing, but it’s really very simple. Here are the key issues and figures in the latest row at the PCB…

In a bid to heal the deep rifts in the team, the PCB has flexed its muscles and hit batting stars Iqbal Butt and Salim Khan with lifetime bans that insiders say could literally last for a “couple of months or more” before being overturned on appeal.

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There is doing things by halves, there is not doing things by halves and then there is doing things like Shahid Afridi. To do things like Shahid Afridi it is necessary to have absolutely no concern as to whether your way of doing things is self-defeating or not. It is about taking stock; weighing up the evidence; concluding that something is demented and highly unlikely to be successful; and then doing it anyway. It is about renouncing reason in all its forms and freewheeling through a garishly-coloured world of frightening highs and jaw-droppingly inevitable lows.

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Cricket’s schedule barely relents at all these days, so it’s a bit of luck that Afghanistan’s significant victory against Ireland has come at a time when the clutter has, albeit briefly, cleared.

For the Afghanistan story is one worth telling. In short, it is the result of the refugee phenomenon. Millions of Afghans fled their country following the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1979 and the civil war that ensued. Estimated figures suggest around three million ended up in Pakistan’s refugee camps, where, amid tens of thousands, they caught the cricketing bug.

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Pakistan are being squashed in Australia but if you’ve seen any of the cricket you’ll know their visit to England this summer won’t be boring.

We will be seeing a lot of them. Pakistan arrive in June and will be here until well into September. They play six Tests in total (two against Australia), five ODIs (all against England) and four Twenty20s (two against Australia).

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Audience participation doesn’t usually feature in the self-important world of the press conference, so it was refreshing to hear Ricky Ponting invite journalists who had doubted his decision to bat first at Sydney to raise their hands.

Since all the locals were presumably in such a good mood – Australia last night overcame a 206-run first-innings deficit to win an astonishing second Test against Pakistan by 36 runs – hands were duly raised. But if Ponting really thinks his team sealed the series because they batted first on a raging greentop, then – light-hearted or not – he’s sprinkling retrospective stardust on his leadership skills.

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Sometimes we focus so much on what is wrong with Test cricket that it is easy to forget the joy it continues to provide, never more so than in this particularly frenzied period of Tests.

The recent series between India and Sri Lanka may have been too batsman-friendly but it provided some extraordinary passages of play. Who could not have wished to see Virender Sehwag’s assault in the third Test, elegant and brutal in equal measure? For Sri Lanka, Tillakaratne Dilshan’s innings were also moments when you had to bin ideas of work and focus on some ball-by-ball Test cricket. There were personal narratives too – Sreesanth, suddenly the grounded, almost geeky bowler of immaculate line and length, Murali suddenly lacking in fizz and accuracy. And Angelo Mathews – doing an Atherton when on 99 and in sight of his first Test hundred.

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Nine months in the life of Younis Khan:

January 2009: made captain of Pakistan, a team short of cricket-playing options because of the perceived security threat in the country. He returns to Test cricket with a triple hundred against Sri Lanka at Karachi and is briefly the number-one ranked Test player in the world Read the rest of this entry »

It has always been tempting to tut and sneer at the cricketers (Australians especially) who seemed to jump at every chance to avoid touring Pakistan. Whatever the real security fears there or in other areas of Asia, there was always the reassurance that cricket and cricketers would never be the targets of atrocities.

Today there is no sneering. That reassurance has vanished. “This is the end,” wrote the UK-based Pakistani commentator Kamran Abbasi on Cricinfo. His voice was mournful, revealing a sense of betrayal and disbelief.

There will be no international cricket in Pakistan for the foreseeable and that is a terrible shame. Cricket has a power to unite, to cross racial and religious boundaries, especially in Asia, that is unmatched by any other activity. Maybe it is that power that is been targeted today by the terrorists.

When India toured Pakistan in 2004, the warmth between supporters glowed with genuine emotion. Indians who travelled were overwhelmed by the welcome, by the friendliness of their hosts. When will Pakistanis next get the chance to host a visiting cricket team? One hopes it is not long but there seems no immediate prospect.

In the meantime, Pakistan must play, wherever and whenever is practical. The global game has a duty to itself and the law-abiding fans in a great cricket-playing nation. Pakistan has yielded so much cricketing talent and inspired so many followers as a result. It is inconceivable for such fertile ground to lie fallow.

John Stern is editor of The Wisden Cricketer