I AM thoroughly looking forward to the Champions Trophy, to be held in Pakistan in September, even if it ends up being contested solely between the host nation and an Al-Qaeda select suicide XI, everybody else having run away.

Pakistan is not the most dangerous country in the world, but it is probably somewhere in the top 10 - and significantly more dangerous, I suppose, if you are a high-profile Kufr infidel cockroach.

The Foreign Office advice is as follows: “We currently advise against all but essential travel to Pakistan,” which, by my reckoning, does not include being soundly beaten by Sri Lanka in the early stages of a cricket knockout tournament.

The government also advises British people in Pakistan to stay in their lodgings and venture out only for a minute or so, a stipulation with which England’s middle order will have little problem complying, if they do turn up at all.

It is a long time since Sir Ian Botham announced that Pakistan was a country where you wouldn’t even send your mother-in-law for the winter - and things have changed. But not, sadly, for the better.

With what passes as an “election” on the way, you would send your mother-in-law to Pakistan now only if she was Sharon Osbourne or Harriet Harman.

It is likely that the wrangling over whether or not to play in Pakistan will be altogether more fun than the cricket itself. The England and Wales Cricket Board will make its decision shortly, perhaps in tandem with those other lily-livered wusses of the cossetted first world, New Zealand and Australia.

Kevin Pietersen, however, seems to have made his mind up already. The batsman has said that he will make a “personal” decision once the ECB has delivered its verdict.

Simple logic would suggest that his decision is simply not to go, full stop, and to hope that the rest of the cricket establishment concurs with him in advance. He claims he is not alone in being scared witless by the prospect of playing in Pakistan, but that similar fears afflict big, tough, manly sportsmen from the antipodes to the Caribbean.

We are indulgent towards our professional sportsmen, expecting them to be wholly selfish and amoral. Urged to consider the morality of taking part in sporting events in Soviet Russia, or Zimbabwe, or China, they whine that these are political matters and that, possessing no capacity for reason, they should be excused the responsibility to consider them. Show them a huge sack of moolah, however, and they have, over the years, demonstrated a remarkable sense of purpose and conviction, which allowed them to play - for example - in apartheid South Africa.

I suspect that the current crisis could have been averted if Mr Pietersen’s fears about his safety were mitigated by a vast bung. Perhaps this is unfair, but I reckon some of the misgivings might be expressed like this: “It’s not just that they want us to play in a s***hole. It’s that they want us to play in a dangerous s***hole.”

But crisis it is, nonetheless - and it reminds me a little of the schism that currently afflicts our established church. With those countries of the Asian subcontinent playing the role of the blood and thunder queer-bashing Africans, and the rest of the world playing the part of the effete, liberal Western bishops.

The Indians and the Pakistanis will not accept a compromise, refusing to accept the ECB’s argument that it would be more pleasant to be blown up by a Tamil Tiger in Kandy than by a Muslim fundamentalist in Karachi. It leaves the ECB little room for manoeuvre and rather short of allies in south Asia. You would think that of all people the Indians might appreciate the potential danger of their next-door neighbour, what with the nukes lined up in the Hindu Kush. But there we are; a sort of pre-partition solidarity has emerged. Quite cheering when you think about it.

Cricketing relations between England and Pakistan have always been a little strained, mind. It is a sport which, like rugby, spread with any degree of seriousness and penetration only to those countries that we once owned.

The fact that in the last half a century almost all of these former imperial colonies are now much better than us has been a source of disquiet over here and jubilation - mixed with a continued resentment - in the colonies.

It was a Pakistani who first suggested that the central control of world cricket should move away from Lord’s and the MCC. The former Pakistan captain Abdul Hafeez Kardar, who played for Warwickshire, made a speech in 1973 in which he demanded immediate change.

Pakistan was best placed, geographically, to be a permanent base for the ICC, he said, given that the country is, in travelling time, close to equidistant between the antipodes and England.

Thirty-odd years later, the ICC moved its headquarters to somewhere equidistant between Pakistan and Europe instead, Dubai.

It is quite possible, though, that Kardar will finally get his wish, even if England, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa are no longer a part of the enterprise.