Who is really to be blamed for politicising cricket?

Cricket fans would remember the 1999 Pakistan tour of India. 

Far-right Hindu group Shiv Sena did not want Pakistan anywhere near an Indian cricket ground. Its cadres dug up the pitch at New Delhi's Feroz Shah Kotla stadium. They attacked the Pakistan High Commission and issued death threats to visiting players. The campaign was public, loud and designed to stop cricket by force.

But Pakistan's then captain Wasim Akram would not let intimidation derail the tour. "No, sir, we will go and play. Cricket is different, and politics is different," he told the team manager. 

That sort of sportsmanship has been marred by politics as international cricket has become hostage to the whims of nationalist rhetoric with increasing frequency. 

The clearest example of this is the doubt that hangs over the India-Pakistan match scheduled for February 15, one of the main highlights of the 2026 men's T20 World Cup that begins on Saturday. 

Pakistan's government has said its team will not take the field against India, even as it remains in the tournament. Islamabad says its decision has been taken in solidarity with Bangladesh, which has been kicked out of the tournament.

The controversy began after Bangladeshi fast bowler Mustafizur Rahman was signed by Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) for the upcoming Indian Premier League (IPL) season, only for his contract to be abruptly terminated. 

Hindu nationalist groups in India protested the signing, claiming Bangladeshi players should not be allowed in the country amid allegations of attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh — allegations Dhaka has denied. 

Following the protests, India's cricket board, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), directed KKR to cancel the deal, without giving any reason, a move that triggered Bangladesh to seek relocation of its matches from India. 

When that request was rejected, the fallout widened — eventually pulling Pakistan into the dispute.

Indian media has attacked Pakistan for politicising the game. But commentators point out that it is instead New Delhi under the Hindu nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi which has altered the nature of the game. 

In recent years, the Indian cricket team has refused to play games in Pakistan, its players have walked off the field without shaking hands with their Pakistani counterparts, and New Delhi has used its financial clout to dominate decisions of the global cricketing body, the ICC. 

India has not played a bilateral series against Pakistan since 2013. Every encounter since has been confined to multi-national tournaments, usually at neutral venues. The policy reflects the Indian government directives and is carried out by the BCCI.

That policy has now begun to reshape tournaments as well.

Troubled history

In 2023, Pakistan won the hosting rights for the Asia Cup. India declined to travel, citing security concerns linked to bilateral tensions. 

The Asian Cricket Council (ACC) scrambled. A hybrid model emerged, with India's matches shifted out of Pakistan, diluting hosting rights and setting a precedent.

The same script played out again during the 2025 Champions Trophy, an international event in which teams play day-long matches. Pakistan was the host, and the matches were supposed to be played there. But India insisted its matches be moved to the neutral venue of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). 

What had been awarded as a home tournament became, in practice, another shared arrangement courtesy of geopolitics.

During the last Asia Cup, also held in the UAE in September 2025, Indian players repeatedly declined to shake hands with Pakistan's side at tosses and after matches.

There is no law requiring a handshake. But there is a long-standing protocol, one that signals mutual recognition even when rivalry runs deep.

After India beat Pakistan in the final, the ceremony, too, was muddied. Indian players declined to receive the trophy and medals from ACC president Mohsin Naqvi, who is also Pakistan's interior minister and the chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB). 

Inside the same tournament, symbolism was also at display. India's captain publicly dedicated their victory over Pakistan to the Indian military, tying a sporting result to a national security narrative. While it played well at home, it blurred lines that cricket has historically tried to keep intact.

No winners

These events have unfolded alongside domestic political rhetoric in India that increasingly treats sport as an extension of state posture.

When Pakistan announced its intention not to play the February 15 match in Sri Lanka's Colombo, senior Indian political voices and former cricketers rushed to label the move political.

But Najam Sethi, a former PCB chairman, told an Indian news channel that Islamabad's decision must not be viewed in isolation.

"If one side (India) has decided to play politics, then I suppose everybody will fall in line at some stage or the other," he said. "And that's exactly what Bangladesh have done now, and Pakistan has followed suit."

"It's the attitude of the BCCI — that's the problem," Sethi said. "At every stage they've been bullying people."

Differential treatment

From outside South Asia, the drift looks just as stark. Nasser Hussain, the former England captain, has lived through moments where sport and politics collided.

"Sport and cricket and politics have always been intertwined," Hussain said on Sky Sports. He pointed to England's refusal to play Zimbabwe at the 2003 World Cup. "Some of that was down to security, a lot of it was down to the Mugabe regime."

What has changed, he argued, is how often politics now intrudes. "It used to be the exception. It's now the norm," Hussain said. And it is no longer limited to governments. "It's not just politicians, it's players as well — not shaking hands, not lifting the trophy. Cricket used to unite nations... now it's pushing people apart."

Hussain traced the current crisis to a specific spark. 

"You've just got to remember where this recent crisis started," he said, referring to Bangladeshi cricketer Rahman.

"He's in the IPL squad and inexplicably he's suddenly taken out. Everything from that one decision snowballed," Hussain said.

But the deeper issue, Hussain suggested, is consistency. "If India, a month before a World Cup, say their government doesn't want them to play, would the ICC be so firm?" Hussain asked. 

"That is the only question all sides ask."

Down memory lane 

Long before this phase, players from the region spoke with different emotions.

In 2019, one of Pakistan's legendary cricketers Javed Miandad spoke about how it was like 'playing with the enemy'.

Miandad had urged both countries to pause and consider what rivalry had begun to cost. "What will we achieve by being adversaries?" he asked. "Why should a game become collateral damage in a political fight?"

Miandad recalled how Indian cricketers, such as legendary Sunil Gavaskar and Bishan Singh Bedi,  who would visit Pakistan for bilateral contests used to stay back afterwards at their homes, and not hotels. 

He also fondly spoke of a Jain family from Jaipur, who later moved to Australia, and would cook for him whenever he toured. "They became a close part of my circle," he said.

He remembered India's 1978-79 tour of Pakistan, the first after the 1971 war, in which India helped Bangladesh win independence from Pakistan. Many Indian visitors stayed with Pakistani families. 

"Imagine the hospitality," Miandad said. "Imagine the love."

Back in 1999, when the Pakistan team landed in India, the noise faded. The first Test in Chennai drew around 50,000 spectators a day, records Wisden, a cricket reference book published annually. Delhi pulled in close to 40,000. 

By the time the series reached Kolkata, the tension had drained away. The tour, Wisden later wrote, was about far more than results. 

It quoted an Indian writer as saying, "The doubting Thomases and the detractors who threatened to disrupt the series were silenced; the Indian government flexed its security muscle to put diplomacy in front, and give cricket the opportunity to defeat hatred, and hatred was soundly defeated."

That tour now, however, feels like a dispatch from another sport.