PCB chairman Ijaz Butt has warned that countries refusing to tour the subcontinent could split the game in two.

The terrorist attacks in Mumbai this week caused England to fly home from their tour of India early with the last two one-day internationals postponed.

Earlier this year, Australia refused to tour Pakistan in the wake of the political unrest which saw former prime minister Benazir Bhutto assassinated.

Now with England's players back home and pondering whether to return for the two-Test series next month, Butt has warned that countries refusing to travel to the region may find their reluctance reciprocated.

He told the BBC World Service's Sportsworld programme: "This is a mutual thing - if they don't come, we won't go.

"You can't have pockets of people playing over here and England playing with only Australia - that's not the essence of the game.

"It has to be with all the Test-playing cricketing companies. We have to agree to something and off-shore cricket is not the only answer."

Pakistan recently faced West Indies in Abu Dhabi, an arrangement which may hold part of the solution.

But Butt insists the ICC's tours programme cannot continue if countries are thinking they continue shun the subcontinent indefinitely.

"They'll have to do a rethink on that because you can't have two separate groups," he said.

"If they continue to not participate in cricket in this part of the world then it will be very difficult and there'll be two sets of rules, two sets of countries and two blocks in the ICC, which would be a dangerous thing to happen."

Butt, though, rejected the notion, put forward by former Australia captain Steve Waugh, that the game was on the verge of crisis.

"I don't think so," he said. "These problems are there, they need to be tackled.

"The (Twenty20) leagues that are being played also need to be tackled.

"In the long run I think cricket will come out (of it)."