Just when it seemed that after a year and a half of strain, the grey skies of India-Bangladesh bilateral relations were finally beginning to brighten, the BCCI’s surprising decision on Mustafizur Rahman threw everything into disarray. The initiative to improve relations was pushed back a hundred paces in an instant.
An angry Bangladesh has decided not to play in the T20 World Cup held in India. The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) has requested the International Cricket Council (ICC) to move their matches to Sri Lanka.
Cricket in South Asia has never lived in splendid isolation from politics. Yet every time the sport is dragged into the trenches of regional hostility, it loses a little more of its soul. The latest chill in India-Bangladesh cricketing ties suggests that New Delhi may be sleepwalking towards repeating with Dhaka what it has long practised with Islamabad: the transformation of cricket from a bridge between peoples into a hostage of politics.
The recent decision attributed to the Board of Control for Cricket in India to sideline Bangladesh’s Mustafizur Rahman from the Kolkata Knight Riders’ plans has rung alarm bells across the region. Official explanations are murky, and no transparent cricketing rationale has been publicly offered. In the charged political climate of today’s India, where Hindutva activism exert visible pressure on institutions, such developments are inevitably read as political signals rather than sporting choices.
This is why many analysts now fear that India’s policy towards Bangladesh could gradually mirror its posture towards Pakistan. India and Pakistan have not played a bilateral cricket series for over a decade. Cricketing contact survives only in the tightly controlled settings of ICC or Asian Cricket Council tournaments staged at neutral venues. The bitterness of politics has ensured that the people of the two countries no longer meet each other on the field except under the watchful eye of multilateral organisers.
Bangladesh, until recently, stood outside this grim template. Despite periodic diplomatic irritants, cricketing ties with India remained robust. Tours were scheduled, players moved freely between leagues, and contests though fiercely competitive were widely celebrated. The postponement of India’s upcoming tour of Bangladesh has therefore come as a jolt, suggesting that cricket is now being made to pay the price for worsening political relations.
Ultimately, cricket administrators must decide whether they wish to be custodians of a sport or instruments of political signalling. The former demands openness, consistency and respect for merit; the latter invites suspicion, resentment and decline. South Asian cricket has already paid dearly for politics once. Repeating the experiment, with a different neighbour, would be a self-inflicted wound.
What makes the current situation especially troubling is the creeping normalisation of political interference in domestic leagues. The Indian Premier League (IPL) has long projected itself as a global tournament driven by talent and commerce, not ideology. Players from around the world, including Pakistan’s neighbours, have contributed to its financial and sporting success. If political litmus tests now determine who is welcome, the IPL risks forfeiting its credibility as a professional league.
Mustafizur Rahman’s case illustrates this danger. Signed for a substantial sum at auction, he represents precisely what the IPL claims to value: skill, experience and market appeal. If a player of his stature can be edged out amid rising political rhetoric, it sends an unmistakable message to others from the region that nationality, not performance, may ultimately decide their fate.
Supporters of such moves often argue that sports cannot be divorced from national interest. But this argument collapses under scrutiny. Cricketing isolation did not moderate Pakistan’s politics, nor did it reduce tensions in the subcontinent. Instead, it deepened mistrust and robbed ordinary fans of rare moments of shared joy. Extending this model to Bangladesh would not serve India’s long-term interests either. Dhaka is not Islamabad, and treating it as such risks pushing a traditionally friendly neighbour into an unnecessarily adversarial corner.
There is also the question of institutional autonomy. The BCCI insists it is independent of government control, yet its actions frequently appear aligned with the political winds in New Delhi. When decisions affecting foreign players coincide neatly with nationalist campaigns at home, perceptions of a ‘deep state’ influence whether fair or not gain traction. For a body that governs the world’s richest cricket board, such perceptions are damaging.
Cricket has historically functioned as a diplomatic safety valve in South Asia. Even at the height of political crises, tours and matches created spaces for dialogue and de-escalation. Abandoning that tradition narrows the already limited avenues of people-to-people contact in the region. If India and Bangladesh are reduced to meeting only in neutral ICC events, something vital will have been lost.
Ultimately, cricket administrators must decide whether they wish to be custodians of a sport or instruments of political signalling. The former demands openness, consistency and respect for merit; the latter invites suspicion, resentment and decline. South Asian cricket has already paid dearly for politics once. Repeating the experiment, with a different neighbour, would be a self-inflicted wound.
For the sake of the game and the region it is time to pull cricket back from the political brink.
