The news first broke on 16 December last year. In the Indian Premier League (IPL) auction, Mustafizur Rahman was bought by the Kolkata Knight Riders for INR 92 million (9.20 crore), the highest price ever paid for a Bangladeshi cricketer in the world’s most popular franchise league. Bangladeshi cricket fans welcomed the news with obvious pride and satisfaction.
That satisfaction, however, proved short-lived. Under pressure from extremist groups in India, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) ultimately instructed KKR to release Mustafizur on 3 January. What has unfolded since can scarcely be described as cricket. If anything, it resembles an action film, complete with opposing camps, confrontation, retaliation and counter-retaliation, yet conspicuously devoid of the game itself.
Ironically, from the highest echelons of cricket administration to roadside tea stalls, one still hears the familiar refrain: the action on the field is what matters most.
In reality, the opposite is increasingly true. With each passing day, what happens off the field is assuming greater significance than what happens on it, and ordinary cricket lovers are bearing the brunt. They are the ones being repeatedly wounded, and ultimately, the game itself is suffering the damage.
If one must taste politics in order to enjoy sport, how long can one’s attachment to the sport survive? One is reminded of Banafool’s short story The Death of the Reader: are we now witnessing, slowly and quietly, the death of the cricket fan?
As matters stand, none of the teams that have stepped off the field have managed to score a single “goal” against their supposed opponents. Whether driven by long-standing political hostilities, newly emerged disputes or questions of national pride, everything that has unfolded around the ICC T20 World Cup has resulted in nothing but “own goals”.
In response to Mustafiz’s exclusion, Bangladesh, citing security concerns, refused to play its T20 World Cup matches in India. Having stood firm on that decision, the country has now been excluded from the ICC T20 World Cup altogether.
Pakistan, meanwhile, has announced that it will not play India in the tournament. This was hardly an isolated decision. It can reasonably be seen as a reaction to Bangladesh’s exclusion, fuelled by the enduring political hostility between India and Pakistan.
So who has gained from all this? Bangladeshi fans will be denied the chance to watch their team at the T20 World Cup. Indian and Pakistani fans will miss out on the most anticipated fixture of all, an India–Pakistan clash.
In fact, no supporters anywhere will get to watch that match. Yet because it involves India and Pakistan, their fans are likely to feel the loss most keenly. Once again, the “goals” have been scored squarely into one’s own net.
Some might point to Scotland and argue that they have benefited. Indeed, on paper and in the history books, Scotland have gained by replacing Bangladesh in the World Cup. But is this how they would have wanted to qualify? Does any team aspire to play in a World Cup without earning its place through the prescribed qualification process?
Cricket Scotland’s chief executive, Trudy Lindblade, made this abundantly clear, “We never wanted to go to the World Cup this way. There is a proper qualification process. No team wants to play or be invited through such a route.”
Let us rewind once more. A single player is dropped from a domestic league in one country. Gradually, the repercussions draw three nations into disputes surrounding a global tournament like the World Cup. If anyone now invokes the familiar maxim ‘keep politics out of sport’, Aristotle’s observation seems particularly apt: man is by nature a political animal.
Otherwise, matters would never have spiralled this far. The chain reaction triggered by one player’s exclusion has entangled three teams in conflict at the very heart of a global cricketing event. The scientific notion of the domino effect readily comes to mind—where a small initial action sets off a series of related events, eventually growing beyond control.
Those involved in cricket administration are hardly ignorant of this principle. Yet when politics outweighs sport in the minds of the powerful, who has time to consider consequences? Perhaps they believe that responsibility lies with the spectators. As a result, with the World Cup looming, cricket itself has been sidelined, and public debate has become fixated on money.
Imagine it: a cricket World Cup is knocking at the door. This should be the time for heated discussions over team strengths and weaknesses, for tea-cup storms over form and tactics. Instead, the dominant topic is financial loss. Cricket has rarely felt so “uncricketing”.
A meme circulating on social media captures the irony perfectly: by preventing Mustafiz from earning INR 90 million, the ICC may now be forced to forgo more than Tk 60 billion.
The implication fits neatly with the domino effect. From Mustafiz’s IPL exclusion, events have escalated to Pakistan’s refusal to play India at the T20 World Cup. According to India’s NDTV, this single match alone represents a market value of around USD 500 million, over Tk 61.2 billion in Bangladeshi currency.
If Pakistan does not face India, the ICC will lose that revenue. Its dividends will shrink, and all member nations of the global governing body will suffer to varying degrees. Only days ago, the debate centred on how much Bangladesh would lose by missing the T20 World Cup, reported by PTI to be over Tk 3.3 billion.
Meanwhile, for some young Bangladeshi fans, this may be the first time in their lives they must prepare to watch a World Cup without their own team. Such modest, human emotions are evidently insignificant in the face of politics and money.
Some argue that the BCCI could have handled the matter with prudence. Speaking to India’s PTI, former ICC head of communications Sami-ul-Hasan said, “If cricket administrators or those responsible had been a little more cautious and avoided making public statements about dropping a Bangladeshi player from a franchise, the situation could easily have been avoided.”
He went on, “There was no need for them to say it publicly. They could have privately informed the franchise (KKR) to release the player. No one would have known what happened, and everything would have moved forward smoothly. Sometimes ill-judged statements leave a lasting impact. That is why the 3 January announcement intensified the situation.”
Whatever the immediate trigger, it is hardly difficult to see that in subcontinental cricket, on and off the field, the real game is one of politics and money, played under the guise of bat and ball.
Last September, Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Mohsin Naqvi, who publicly advocates keeping politics out of sport, gave an interview to The Guardian. He also happens to be Pakistan’s interior minister. The current ICC chairman, Jay Shah, is a former BCCI secretary and the son of India’s current home minister, Amit Shah.
Are these not the two most powerful figures in subcontinental cricket? Despite political hostilities, India and Pakistan have been paired in the group stage of ICC men’s tournaments for the past 13 years. More accurately, the ICC has ensured it. The reason is well understood: money.
The more often these two teams face each other, the higher the ICC’s revenues. Against this backdrop, proclamations about the “integrity” and “fairness” of ICC tournaments sound distinctly hollow. But perhaps that is inevitable: the cow that gives more milk will always receive more care.
Sami-ul-Hasan himself told Al Jazeera last year, “When the ICC plans a global tournament, it does not consider rankings or other factors. The primary objective is to ensure that India and Pakistan face each other at least once.”
This time, that opportunity does not exist. With the World Cup set to begin on 7 February, only a few days remain. As of Tuesday, the PCB has not withdrawn its decision to avoid playing India, nor has the ICC found a solution. Some may still cling to hope. But it is now evident that this cannot be resolved through cricketing logic alone.
The issue has moved far beyond cricket. The game has merged with politics into something altogether different, where bats and balls remain, but the innocence and aroma of pure cricket have vanished. Draw a breath, and all you smell is politics.
This is not new. Do you recall Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s social media post after India defeated Pakistan in last year’s Asia Cup final, “Operation Sindoor on the games field”?
This is how cricket proceeds in this post-modern age. Whether you choose to stand by it, or walk away, is entirely up to you.