Michael Atherton criticizes the India-Pakistan match as a 'miserable spectacle', preferring the inspiring stories from Italy and Nepal at the 2026 T20 World Cup.

Former England cricketer and reputed commentator Michael Atherton has slammed the India-Pakistan match as a ‘miserable spectacle’, used for political one-upmanship and minting money for the International Cricket Council (ICC), while being too one-sided on the field.

Atherton made the comments on the eve of the 2026 T20 World Cup clash between the rivals. The match, hosted at the R. Premadasa Stadium in Colombo, was on the verge of being canceled after Pakistan threatened to boycott. It took a ton of back-channel ‘negotiations’ between the ICC and the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) to resolve it, with political leaders heavily involved, another example of how non-sporting it is.

“There is likely to be the usual feverish anticipation over the next day or two; breathless articles about the number of eyeballs on the game, usually said to be somewhere in the mid-hundreds of millions, and the importance of the occasion. In truth, it has become a miserable spectacle recently — both on the field, where it has become too one-sided, and off it, where the result has been exploited in a performative way," Atherton wrote in his column for 

The Times.

Athertons said that it used to be a dream fixture for journalists, but now he’d rather watch Italy or Nepal play, because of the depth of the beautiful stories of their players.

“Once upon a time, it was the fixture that any journalist or broadcaster would beg to cover, it being the biggest, most consequential in the sport. Yet this week, to be frank, greater satisfaction was to be had covering matches involving Nepal and Italy. On Thursday, at the magnificent Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, there was no subtext to the simple pleasure of the Italian supporters in the stands or on the faces of the Mosca brothers, Justin and Anthony, who took their team to their first-ever World Cup win," he said.

“So, yes, I’ll be tuning in on Sunday for the big match but, right now, it feels as much out of a sense of obligation than pleasure. The old cliché about sport being important precisely because it is so unimportant has rarely felt less applicable," Atherton added.

view comments

News cricket India-Pakistan Match Slammed As 'Miserable' Spectacle: 'Rather Cover Nepal, Italy'

Read More