New Delhi, India – On January 3, 2026, a single directive from the Board of Management for Cricket in India (BCCI) quietly ended the Indian Premier League (IPL) season of Bangladesh’s solely cricketer within the match, Mustafizur Rahman, earlier than it might even start.
The Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), knowledgeable Twenty20 franchise primarily based in Kolkata that competes within the IPL and is owned by Pink Chillies Leisure, related to Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan, have been instructed by India’s cricket board to launch the Bangladesh quick bowler.
Not due to harm, kind, or contract disputes, however attributable to “developments throughout” – an obvious reference to hovering tensions between India and Bangladesh which were excessive since ousted former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina obtained exile in New Delhi in August 2024.
Inside days, Mustafizur signed up for the Pakistan Tremendous League (PSL), the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) protested sharply, the IPL broadcast was banned in Bangladesh, and the Worldwide Cricket Council (ICC) – the physique that governs the game globally – was pulled right into a diplomatic standoff.
What ought to have been a routine participant transaction as an alternative grew to become a logo of how cricket in South Asia has shifted from a instrument of diplomacy to an instrument of political stress.
Cricket has lengthy been the subcontinent’s soft-power language, a shared obsession that survived wars, border closures, and diplomatic freezes. At present, that language is being rewritten, say observers and analysts.
India, the monetary and political centre of world cricket, is more and more utilizing its dominance of the game to sign, punish, and coerce its neighbours, significantly Pakistan and Bangladesh, they are saying.
The Mustafizur affair: When politics entered the dressing room
Rahman was signed by KKR for 9.2 million Indian rupees ($1m) earlier than the IPL 2026 season.
But the BCCI instructed the franchise to launch him, citing imprecise exterior developments broadly understood to be linked to political tensions between India and Bangladesh.
The implications have been rapid.
Mustafizur, unlikely to obtain compensation as a result of the termination was not injury-related, accepted a proposal from the PSL – choosing the Pakistani league after an Indian snub – returning to the match after eight years.
The PSL confirmed his participation earlier than its January 21 draft. The BCB, in the meantime, referred to as the BCCI’s intervention “discriminatory and insulting”.
Dhaka escalated the matter past cricket, asking the ICC to maneuver Bangladesh’s matches from the upcoming T20 World Cup, which India is primarily internet hosting, to Sri Lanka over safety considerations.
The Bangladeshi authorities went additional, banning the published of the IPL nationwide, a uncommon step that underlined how deeply cricket intersects with politics and public sentiment in South Asia.
The BCB on January 7 stated the Worldwide Cricket Council (ICC) has assured it of Bangladesh’s full and uninterrupted participation within the ICC Males’s T20 World Cup 2026, dismissing media studies of any ultimatum.
The BCB stated the ICC responded to its considerations over the security and safety of the nationwide group in India, together with a request to relocate matches, and reaffirmed its dedication to safeguarding Bangladesh’s participation whereas expressing willingness to work intently with the Board throughout detailed safety planning.
But for now, Bangladesh’s matches stay scheduled for the Indian megacities of Kolkata and Mumbai from February 7, 2026, at the same time as tensions simmer.
Navneet Rana, a BJP chief stated that no Bangladeshi cricketer or celeb needs to be “entertained in India” whereas Hindus and minorities are being focused in Bangladesh.
In the meantime, Indian Congress chief Shashi Tharoor questioned the choice to launch Mustafizur Rahman, warning towards politicising sport and punishing particular person gamers for developments overseas.
A sample, not an exception
The Mustafizur controversy suits right into a broader trajectory.
Whereas all cricket boards function inside political realities, the BCCI’s distinctive monetary energy provides it leverage unmatched by some other physique within the sport, say analysts.
The ICC, the game’s world physique, is headed by Jay Shah, the son of India’s highly effective dwelling minister Amit Shah – broadly seen because the second-most influential man in India after Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The IPL, in the meantime, is by far the richest franchise league on the earth.
India, with 1.5 billion individuals, is cricket’s greatest market and generates an estimated 80 p.c of the game’s income.
All of that, say analysts, provides India the power to form scheduling of occasions and matches, venues, and revenue-sharing preparations. This, in flip, has made cricket a strategic asset for the Indian authorities.
When political relations bitter, cricket is not insulated.
Nowhere is that this clearer than in India’s relationship with Bangladesh in the meanwhile. India has traditionally been seen as near Hasina, whose ouster in 2024 adopted weeks of in style protests that her safety forces tried to crush utilizing brutal drive. An estimated 1,400 individuals have been killed in that crackdown, in response to the United Nations.
India has up to now refused to ship Hasina again to Bangladesh from exile, although a tribunal in Dhaka sentenced her to dying in late 2025 over the killings of protesters throughout the rebellion that led to her removing. That has spurred sentiments towards India on the streets of Bangladesh, which escalated after the assassination of an anti-India protest chief in December.
In the meantime, assaults on Hindus and different non secular minorities in Bangladesh since August 2024 – a Hindu Bangladeshi man was lynched final month – have brought on anger in India.
Towards that backdrop, the BCCI’s transfer to kick Rahman out of the IPL has drawn criticism from Indian commentators. Senior journalist Vir Sanghvi wrote in a column that the cricket board “panicked” and surrendered to communal stress as an alternative of standing by its personal player-selection course of, turning a sporting subject right into a diplomatic embarrassment.
He argued Bangladesh didn’t warrant a sport boycott and warned that mixing communal politics with cricket dangers damaging India’s credibility and regional ties.
Echoing the priority, Suhasini Haidar, diplomatic editor of The Hindu, certainly one of India’s largest dailies, stated on X that the federal government was permitting social media campaigns to overpower diplomacy. She referred to how Indian International Minister S Jaishankar had travelled just lately to Dhaka to attend the funeral of former Bangladesh PM Khaleda Zia, and puzzled why Bangladeshi cricketers couldn’t then play in India.
Cricket analyst Darminder Joshi stated the episode mirrored how cricket, as soon as a bridge between India and its neighbours, was more and more widening divisions.
That was significantly seen late final yr, when India and Pakistan confronted off in cricket matches months after an intense four-day aerial conflict.
The Asia Cup standoff
The 2025 Asia Cup, hosted by Pakistan in September, was meant to be a celebration of regional cricket.
However citing authorities recommendation, the BCCI knowledgeable the ICC and the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) – the game’s continental governing physique – that India wouldn’t journey to Pakistan.
After months of wrangling, the match was held beneath a hybrid mannequin, with India taking part in its matches within the United Arab Emirates whereas the remainder have been hosted in Pakistan.
However in three matches that the South Asian rivals performed towards one another throughout the competitors – India gained all three – the Indian group refused to publicly shake arms with their Pakistani counterparts.
“There isn’t any rule in cricket that mandates a handshake. But gamers usually tie one another’s shoelaces or assist opponents on the sphere, that’s the spirit of the sport,” Joshi, the cricket analyst, informed Al Jazeera. “If nations are in battle, will gamers now refuse even these gestures? Such incidents solely unfold hate and strip the sport of what makes it particular.
“Sporting exchanges as soon as softened bilateral tensions; this determination does precisely the alternative, making the sport extra hostile as an alternative of extra fascinating.”
The controversy didn’t finish with the ultimate. India gained the match, defeating Pakistan, however refused to simply accept the trophy from ACC President Mohsin Naqvi, who can also be the Pakistan Cricket Board chairman and Pakistan’s inside minister.
The trophy stays on the ACC headquarters in Dubai, creating an unprecedented limbo that has defied decision regardless of a number of ICC and ACC conferences. The BCCI requested that the trophy be despatched to India. Naqvi has refused.
From bridge to divider
In contrast to Pakistan, Bangladesh has traditionally loved smoother cricketing ties with India. Bilateral collection continued even throughout political disagreements, and Bangladeshi gamers grew to become acquainted faces within the IPL.
The Mustafizur episode marks a turning level. The present second stands in stark distinction to earlier eras when cricket was intentionally used to melt political hostilities.
Probably the most celebrated instance stays India’s 2004 tour of Pakistan, the so-called “Friendship Sequence”.
That tour came about after years of frozen ties following the Kargil Struggle, an armed battle between India and Pakistan that came about from Might to July 1999.
The then-Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee personally met the Indian group earlier than departure, handing captain Sourav Ganguly a bat inscribed with the Hindi phrases: “Khel hello nahi, dil bhi jeetiye” which interprets to “don’t simply win matches, win hearts too”.
Particular cricket visas allowed hundreds of Indian followers to journey throughout the border. Pakistani then-President Pervez Musharraf adopted the video games and publicly lauded Indian cricketers who developed followings of their very own in Pakistan.
The 2008 Mumbai assaults, carried out by fighters that Pakistan acknowledged had come from its territory, froze cricketing ties.
However in 2011, when India and Pakistan confronted off within the World Cup semifinal in Mohali, Indian then-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh invited his Pakistani counterpart, Yousuf Raza Gilani, over – the 2 premiers watched the match collectively in what was broadly seen as an act of “cricket diplomacy”.
By intervening in a franchise-level contract and linking it, nevertheless obliquely, to geopolitical tensions as has occurred with the Mustafizur case, the BCCI despatched a transparent message, say analysts: Entry to Indian cricket is conditional.
Sport journalist Nishant Kapoor informed Al Jazeera that releasing a contracted participant purely on political grounds was “completely incorrect” and warned it could widen distrust within the cricketing ecosystem.
“He’s a cricketer. What incorrect has he carried out?” Kapoor stated.
