India-Bangladesh tensions spill into cricket as sport becomes diplomatic tool

Updated by Faith Barbara N Ruhinda at 1401 EAT on Saturday 10 January 2026

New Delhi, India — On January 3, 2026, a single directive from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) quietly brought an abrupt end to Bangladesh fast bowler Mustafizur Rahman’s Indian Premier League (IPL) campaign before it had even begun. Rahman was the only Bangladeshi cricketer signed for the season.

The BCCI instructed the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) — a Kolkata-based Twenty20 franchise competing in the IPL and owned by Red Chillies Entertainment, co-founded by Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan — to release Rahman from their squad, effectively ruling him out of the tournament.

Not because of injury, form, or contractual disputes, but due to what officials described as “developments all around” — an apparent reference to escalating political tensions between India and Bangladesh. Relations have been strained since August 2024, when former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina was ousted and later granted exile in New Delhi.

Within days of his release, Mustafizur signed with a franchise in the Pakistan Super League (PSL), triggering a sharp protest from the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB). Bangladesh subsequently banned IPL broadcasts, while the International Cricket Council (ICC), the sport’s global governing body, was drawn into what had become a widening diplomatic standoff.

What might ordinarily have been a routine player transaction instead emerged as a symbol of a broader shift in South Asian cricket — from a vehicle of diplomacy to an instrument of political pressure.

India — the financial and political centre of world cricket — is increasingly leveraging its dominance of the sport to signal, penalise and exert pressure on neighbouring countries, particularly Pakistan and Bangladesh, according to analysts.

Rahman had been signed by KKR for 9.2 million Indian rupees ($1 million) ahead of the IPL 2026 season. However, the BCCI later instructed the franchise to release him, citing unspecified “external developments” widely understood to be linked to political tensions between India and Bangladesh.

The consequences were swift. With the termination not related to injury, Mustafizur was unlikely to receive compensation and instead accepted an offer from the Pakistan Super League (PSL), returning to the tournament after an eight-year absence. The PSL confirmed his participation ahead of its January 21 draft.

The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) responded sharply, describing the BCCI’s intervention as “discriminatory and insulting.” Dhaka soon escalated the dispute beyond cricket, formally requesting the International Cricket Council (ICC) to relocate Bangladesh’s matches in the upcoming ICC Men’s T20 World Cup — which India is set to host — to Sri Lanka, citing security concerns.

The Bangladeshi government went further, imposing a nationwide ban on IPL broadcasts, a rare move that underscored how deeply cricket intersects with politics and public sentiment in South Asia.

On January 7, the BCB said the ICC had assured it of Bangladesh’s full and uninterrupted participation in the T20 World Cup, dismissing media reports suggesting any ultimatum. The board said the ICC acknowledged its security concerns, including the request to relocate matches, and reaffirmed its commitment to safeguarding Bangladesh’s participation while working closely with the BCB on detailed security planning.

Navneet Rana, a leader of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), said no Bangladeshi cricketer or celebrity should be “entertained in India” while Hindus and other minorities were allegedly being targeted in Bangladesh.

By contrast, senior Indian National Congress leader Shashi Tharoor questioned the decision to release Mustafizur Rahman, cautioning against politicising sport and penalising individual athletes for political developments in another country.

The ICC, the sport’s global governing body, is headed by Jay Shah, the son of India’s powerful home minister Amit Shah, who is widely regarded as the country’s second-most influential political figure after Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Indian Premier League, meanwhile, is by far the world’s richest franchise-based cricket competition.

India, home to around 1.5 billion people, is cricket’s largest market and generates an estimated 80 percent of the sport’s global revenue.
That financial and institutional dominance, analysts say, gives India significant influence over the scheduling of tournaments and matches, the selection of venues, and revenue-sharing arrangements — effectively turning cricket into a strategic asset for the Indian state.

When political relations deteriorate, the sport is no longer insulated.
Nowhere is this more evident than in India’s current relationship with Bangladesh. New Delhi has long been seen as close to former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina, whose removal from office in 2024 followed weeks of mass protests. Her security forces attempted to suppress the demonstrations with force, leaving an estimated 1,400 people dead, according to the United Nations.

India has so far refused to extradite Hasina, who has been living in exile in New Delhi, despite a tribunal in Dhaka sentencing her to death in late 2025 over the killing of protesters during the uprising that led to her ouster. The decision has fuelled anti-India sentiment in Bangladesh, which intensified following the assassination of a prominent anti-India protest leader in December.

Meanwhile, attacks on Hindus and other religious minorities in Bangladesh since August 2024 — including the lynching of a Hindu Bangladeshi man last month — have sparked anger in India.

Against that backdrop, the BCCI’s decision to remove Rahman from the IPL has drawn criticism from Indian commentators. Veteran journalist Vir Sanghvi wrote in a column that the cricket board had “panicked” and yielded to communal pressure instead of standing by its own player-selection process, turning a sporting matter into a diplomatic embarrassment.

Sanghvi argued that Bangladesh did not warrant a sporting boycott and warned that conflating communal politics with cricket risked damaging India’s credibility and regional relationships.

Echoing those concerns, Suhasini Haidar, diplomatic editor of The Hindu, one of India’s largest newspapers, wrote on X that the government was allowing social media campaigns to override diplomacy. She pointed to External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar’s recent visit to Dhaka to attend the funeral of former Bangladeshi prime minister Khaleda Zia, questioning why Bangladeshi cricketers could not be allowed to play in India.

Cricket analyst Darminder Joshi said the episode underscored how cricket — once a bridge between India and its neighbours — was increasingly becoming a source of division.

Unlike Pakistan, Bangladesh has historically maintained relatively smooth cricketing ties with India. Bilateral series continued even during periods of political strain, and Bangladeshi players became familiar and regular figures in the IPL.

The Mustafizur episode, however, marks a clear turning point — one that contrasts sharply with earlier periods when cricket was consciously used to ease political tensions rather than amplify them.

– Aljazeera

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