Pakistan’s decision to allow its national cricket team to face India in the 2026 T20 World Cup has been presented by Islamabad as an act of sporting maturity, a willingness to keep the game moving even when politics threatens to grind it to a halt. Yet beneath the official language about the “spirit of cricket” lies a far less comfortable truth: international cricket remains hostage to power, and no institution has bent it more brazenly in recent years than the Board of Control for Cricket in India. The match, scheduled for 15 February, should have been a routine fixture between two neighbors whose rivalry has long been the commercial engine of global cricket.
Instead, it became a diplomatic and administrative ordeal, exposing how unevenly the rules of the game are applied when India’s interests are involved. Pakistan’s government approval came only after days of confusion, boycott threats and hurried consultations with the Pakistan Cricket Board, the Bangladesh Cricket Board and the International Cricket Council. What ought to have been a cricketing decision was transformed into a geopolitical puzzle, and at the centre of it all sat the BCCI’s shadow. Cricket administrators like to insist that politics has no place on the field. It is a comforting fiction, repeated whenever inconvenient questions arise. The reality is that the BCCI has long treated international cricket as an extension of Indian state power, using its financial clout and political proximity to shape outcomes that suit New Delhi’s mood.
When India refuses to travel, tournaments are rearranged. When India raises security concerns, schedules bend. When others do the same, they are lectured about commitments and contracts. The immediate crisis was triggered by Bangladesh’s stated security concerns about playing in India, concerns that were neither new nor frivolous in a region where sport and politics are tightly entwined. Instead of working transparently to address those worries, the ICC moved with startling haste to exclude Bangladesh from the tournament when assurances were not forthcoming. The decision reeked of expediency rather than principle, and it is difficult to ignore the broader context in which India’s preferences tend to be treated as sacrosanct.
Pakistan’s furious response, branding the move a blatant double standard and announcing a boycott of its own India fixture, was less a tantrum than a protest against a system that repeatedly asks smaller or less powerful boards to swallow indignities for the sake of the show. That Pakistan eventually reversed course does not invalidate the complaint. If anything, it underlines the imbalance. Islamabad chose to step back from the brink, arguing that cricket should not be held hostage to politics. The prime minister’s public good wishes to the team were meant to signal grace under pressure, a willingness to rise above provocation. Yet this restraint came at a cost.
Pakistan once again absorbed the burden of compromise, while the structural issues that caused the crisis were quietly brushed aside. The BCCI’s role in this saga is emblematic of a wider malaise. Indian cricket’s administrators often cloak themselves in the rhetoric of professionalism and commercial realism, but their actions betray a narrower agenda. By aligning so closely with the political priorities of the Indian state, they have blurred the line between a sporting body and a geopolitical actor. The refusal to engage bilaterally with Pakistan, the selective invocation of security concerns, and the unspoken expectation that others will adapt to India’s red lines have eroded the very idea of cricket as a level playing field.
This behavior demeans other nations not only by marginalizing their voices, but by treating their legitimate concerns as irritants rather than issues to be resolved. Bangladesh’s initial exclusion sent a clear message: compliance matters more than fairness. The subsequent promise of future hosting rights, offered as a salve once the backlash grew too loud, felt less like justice than damage control. It is the kind of gesture that keeps the machinery running while leaving the underlying injustice intact. The ICC, for its part, emerged looking weak and reactive. Its willingness to take drastic action against Bangladesh, followed by frantic negotiations involving Sri Lanka and the UAE, exposed how vulnerable global cricket governance has become to pressure from its most powerful member.
That diplomatic intervention from Sri Lanka’s president was required to break the deadlock should be a source of embarrassment for an organization that claims to be the guardian of the game. Expressions of gratitude from Colombo and Dhaka towards Pakistan may be heartfelt, but they also highlight how far the ICC has drifted from its role as an impartial arbiter. What this episode ultimately reveals is not that sport can triumph over politics, but that it often survives by bending to it. Cricket continues, fixtures are played, broadcasters are satisfied, and the spectacle rolls on. Yet each such compromise chips away at the credibility of the game.
When rules are applied selectively, when one board’s comfort consistently outweighs another’s security concerns, the idea of cricket as a shared, gentlemanly pursuit rings hollow. The BCCI likes to remind the world that India is the financial backbone of modern cricket. That is undeniably true. But money, while essential, should not buy moral exemption. The gentleman’s game was built on notions of respect, reciprocity and fairness, values that cannot coexist with a culture of intimidation and unilateralism. By politicizing cricket so openly and by reducing other nations to bit players in a drama scripted elsewhere, the BCCI risks turning the sport into a caricature of itself.
Pakistan’s decision to play on 15 February may keep the tournament intact, but it should not be mistaken for an endorsement of the status quo. It is, rather, an act of pragmatism in a system that punishes defiance. If international cricket is to reclaim any sense of integrity, its governors must confront the uncomfortable truth that the game has become skewed by power. Until that happens, every high-profile match will carry the same uneasy subtext: that the contest on the field is only part of the story, and not the part that decides the rules.
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