OLIVER HOLT: The stain will never wash off if English cricket allows Indian owners to bring in apartheid against Pakistanis in The Hundred – our ‘competition for everyone’ will be a flagship for exclusion

However unpalatable it seems from a wider perspective, the fact that Pakistani players face a de facto ban from playing in the Indian Premier League because of their nationality is not something that anyone in English sport can influence.

It is a domestic competition within India and the enmity towards Pakistan is something embedded in the culture and the politics of the nation.

It is entirely different, however, when discriminatory policies practised by the IPL are exported to this country and reach a point where they stain one of England’s own domestic cricket competitions and we step back and let it happen.

That is the prospect that is now looming into view with reports that Pakistan cricketers will not be considered by the four Indian-owned sides in The Hundred for next month’s player auction, held in central London.

There is an analogy here with Saudi Arabia and its ownership of Newcastle United. The kingdom has its own culture, which includes treating women as second-class citizens and murdering journalists in cold blood. It may seem loathsome in Western culture but it is not our right to interfere in the way their country is run.

When the country that propagates those policies, though, buys an English football institution and that institution becomes inextricably associated with those policies, then it is hard to justify state ownership of clubs in our league.

After the ECB sold its 49 per cent stakes in each of the eight Hundred franchises last year, four of them – Manchester Super Giants, MI London, Southern Brave and Sunrisers Leeds – are now at least part-owned by companies that control IPL teams.

The result is that Pakistan cricketers are not being considered by Indian-owned sides for this year’s auction, the first since the influx of Indian owners.

It is a trend which fits other Indian-influenced franchise leagues around the world, not just in India but in South Africa and the UAE, too.

It is a line that cricket in this country should not be able to cross. It is a policy that would bring shame on The Hundred and go against all the principles of tolerance and equality that sport in this country holds so dear.

It is a policy that has the potential to undermine the competition fatally both in terms of the ideology that it stands for and the commercial appeal that it holds. It is a policy of blatant discrimination that cannot be allowed.

How, for instance, is a No-Pakistani policy going to play out in Manchester, London and Leeds, where there are sizeable Pakistani, cricket-mad populations? Why would they want to go and watch a sport that is ostracising their players?

The whole raison d’etre of The Hundred was to expand the appeal of cricket to a new generation tired of old boundaries and old traditions. Now, it is in danger of becoming a flagship competition for exclusion.

ECB chief executive Richard Gould insisted recently that he wanted ‘players from all nations to be selected for all teams’ in The Hundred and advised that ‘clear anti-discrimination policies’ were part of the competition’s culture.

His body has warned teams of disciplinary action if any discrimination is found.

This is a test of whether he meant what he said. This is a test of quite how much power and will the ECB has to do the right thing.

Let’s be clear what this anti-Pakistani policy is: it is a creeping form of apartheid and if it is allowed to seep into our domestic cricket, it will be a stain on our game that will be hard to scrub clean.