The international game can well do without Bangladesh, but Bangladesh cannot do without cricket as the game is popular at home and its board needs the money to sustain the base and infrastructure that has been built over decades with the blessings of the BCCI and the Pakistan Cricket Board
Cricket is no stranger to geopolitics. It has been dragged into the politics of nations often enough and it is Bangladesh that is playing a game now to bring cricket into the quagmire that it faces in a dire home situation at home in which the minorities are quaking in fear for their lives.
The international game can well do without Bangladesh, but Bangladesh cannot do without cricket as the game is popular at home and its board needs the money to sustain the base and infrastructure that has been built over decades with the blessings of the BCCI and the Pakistan Cricket Board.
The nation might believe its cricketers might be anxious about playing in India to fulfil its engagements in the T20World Cup hosted by the ICC. Bangladesh sees it as an extension of the circumstances it finds itself in when anti-India sentiment is sweeping the country in the wake of the regime change that took place in August 2024 with the fall of Sheikh Hasina and subsequent unrest. The ICC may advance equity as the reason why any Bangladesh request not to play in India can be entertained as similar appeals by India not to play in Pakistan and Pakistan’s concocted unwillingness to play in India after having participated in the 2023 World Cup have been allowed.
A kind of rigmarole is inevitable as Pakistan hosts events without being able to host India as we saw in the Asia Cup and India too will be hosting the upcoming T20 World Cup in the hybrid mode with a neutral third country as a convenient venue. And Sri Lanka, with many venues in Colombo and a few nearby always ready to host matches, is the facilitator that takes the role of the UAE, which has often been the go-to neutral venue for cricket.
Some of the creation of this present crisis regarding T20 World Cup venues is owed to the BCCI’s hasty decision to ask one of its IPL franchises — KKR owned by Shah Rukh Khan — to release the Bangladesh fast bowler from its squad in view of possible repercussions of dangerous situation in Bangladesh where at least four Hindus have been butchered in most recent times of turmoil caused by student protests.
It is a hypothetical question if the BCCI would have ordered relieving of a player if it had been a Bangladeshi Hindu like Litton Das who has now been named to lead his national team in the T20 World Cup. The moral aspect of it is, however, clear as the BCCI was wrong to pick on the player as a way of settling scores. The board could well have waited for the February 12 polls to take place in Bangladesh after which a sort of legitimate government could be in place in Dhaka.
Lost amid all this jingoistic nationalism that exacerbates the social problems already evident in the clash of religions in a societal setting is sport which should have little to do with politics or religion or the politics of religion. The game must go on, and it will regardless of how apprehensive national teams feel about travelling to trouble zones.
The T20 World Cup will be a successful sporting entertainer, with or without Bangladesh. But to be inclusive and allow Bangladesh to play while not letting politics come in the way of sport should be the ideal. Indian cricket, with its financial clout that can make or mar the game, can afford to be generous and see the bigger picture.
