Between cricket and diplomacy: How the gentleman's game became a victim of populist politics 

When Bangladeshi pacer Mustafizur Rahman was dropped from this year's Indian Premier League (IPL) roster, it could have been regarded as an everyday affair in a franchise cricket tournament. 

But against the backdrop of deteriorating relations between India and Bangladesh, it instead turned into a foreign policy crisis.

Indeed, the episode should not be read as an isolated controversy, but as a symptom of longstanding hostilities brewing for years between the neighbours, which accelerated sharply after the July Uprising last year.

But how did we get here?

Populist politics overshadows the 'gentleman's game'

On 3 January, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) instructed Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) to release Mustafiz from their IPL squad, citing unspecified "developments". 

BCCI Secretary Devajit Saikia offered only a vague justification, citing "recent developments" without specifying the criteria or process behind the decision. 

Bangladesh's Sports Adviser Asif Nazrul was quick to condemn the move, framing it as capitulation to communal pressure and instructing the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) to raise the matter formally with the International Cricket Council (ICC).  

The government soon announced an indefinite suspension of IPL broadcasts and signalled that Bangladesh's participation in the 2026 T20 World Cup in India could no longer be assumed safe, stating that if a Bangladeshi player cannot play in India despite a valid contract, Bangladesh cannot consider it safe for its national team to travel there for the World Cup. 

BCB Director Khaled Mashud Pilot distilled this logic succinctly, "As a citizen and former player, I feel that if adequate security cannot be guaranteed, any accident could occur. Therefore, I think it is a very responsible decision by the BCB to request an alternative venue." 

The security concerns he raised did not occur in a vacuum; before BCCI's abrupt decision, former BJP MLA Sangeet Som led a political backlash against Mustafiz's signing by the Kolkata Knight Riders, calling it "anti-national" and a "betrayal". 

Linking the move to communal tensions in Bangladesh, he questioned Shah Rukh Khan's loyalty and warned that Bangladeshi players would be physically blocked at Indian airports. 

This rhetoric unfolded against a media environment in India dominated by alarmist coverage of violence against minorities in Bangladesh — narratives increasingly viewed in Bangladesh as selective and politicised. 

At home, tensions have been further sharpened by the presence in India of figures linked to the fallen Hasina government, including Hasina herself, and individuals associated with the killing of activist Osman Hadi. As grievances accumulated, anti-Indian and anti-Bangladeshi sentiment rose in parallel.

Former cricketers largely agree that politics has entered selection, with Akash Chopra calling Mustafiz "collateral damage" — not accused of wrongdoing, merely expendable within a larger political narrative.

Former Bangladeshi diplomat Humayun Kabir observed that public pressure has increasingly begun to shape diplomatic posture, compelling governments into hardline positions they might otherwise avoid. "We understand that the public is emotional, and it is the governments' jobs to bring those emotions down to a manageable level. This has to be done by taking into account the new context that has emerged at the diplomatic level.

Cricket diplomacy in South Asia 

Cricket, South Asia's most popular sport, has always been political, often sliding from recreation into statecraft during periods of tension. 

Rooted in the British Empire's use of the game to transmit imperial values, cricket diplomacy later became a barometer of post-colonial relations, especially after Partition.

Early tours in the 1950s aimed at reconciliation, but the practice gained real diplomatic weight in the late 20th century. The 1987 "Cricket for Peace" initiative, when Pakistan's President Zia-ul-Haq flew to India amid a military standoff, symbolised cricket's potential to defuse conflict.

In the 1990s and 2000s, tours evolved into people-to-people diplomacy, most notably through the 2004 Friendship Series. Yet the mechanism proved fragile. 

After the 2008 Mumbai attacks, India froze bilateral ties, and cricket became a tool of isolation rather than engagement, excluding Pakistan from tours and the IPL. 

The recent Mustafiz episode merely shows how sport can now intensify, rather than ease, diplomatic strain.

But not all agree on the politicisation of the sport.

Indian opposition MP Shashi Tharoor's intervention was notable precisely because it reasserted a classical diplomatic view — that sport should not be made to carry the burden of political failure. 

Politicising even "a private cricket game," he argued, narrows the space for engagement at moments when restraint is most needed.

Meanwhile, social media outrage, amplified by partisan narratives in both countries, reduced the room for quiet institutional correction. 

As Humayun Kabir, former Bangladesh ambassador to the US and current President of Bangladesh Enterprise Institution (BEI), observed, public pressure has increasingly begun to shape diplomatic posture, compelling governments into hardline positions they might otherwise avoid. 

"The public has now become involved. We understand that the public is emotional, and it is the governments' jobs to bring those emotions down to a manageable level. This has to be done by taking into account the new context that has emerged at the diplomatic level. And since we are neighbouring countries, there is no benefit in keeping tensions between us," he told TBS. 

Kabir urged keeping sport out of politics, especially with an election approaching, arguing that attention should remain on bigger public issues rather than being diverted elsewhere. 

Power asymmetry and the political economy of cricket

The rapid escalation also cannot be understood without acknowledging structural imbalance. 

BCCI is the most powerful institution in global cricket, controlling revenue flows, broadcasting markets and the sport's commercial centre of gravity. IPL, thus, is not merely a league; it is the system around which modern cricket rotates.

Bangladesh operates within that ecosystem with far less leverage. Access to the IPL enhances player earnings, raises national profiles and indirectly strengthens domestic cricket. In such an asymmetrical relationship, decisions taken by the dominant actor are rarely interpreted as neutral — even when they claim to be.

Seen from Dhaka, Mustafiz's removal appeared less like a franchise adjustment and more like a demonstration of institutional disregard. The Bangladesh government's intervention — through broadcast bans and ICC appeals — can therefore be seen as an attempt to rebalance that asymmetry by shifting the dispute onto multilateral and public platforms.

At a global level, the episode exposes the fragility of cricket's governance architecture. The ICC lacks clear, enforceable mechanisms to arbitrate disputes where sporting decisions intersect with political pressure. 

Its instinctive caution — aimed at avoiding accusations of bias — often leaves it reactive rather than authoritative.

For powerful boards, this creates a responsibility problem. Decisions taken without transparency may be defensible internally, yet still generate diplomatic fallout externally. In an era where sport, politics and media are tightly coupled, institutional opacity is itself a political act.

The most vulnerable actor in this equation remains the athlete. Mustafizur Rahman became the visible face of a dispute he neither initiated nor controlled. As sports diplomacy grows more contested, the absence of safeguards for players caught in geopolitical crosscurrents is increasingly untenable.