The Indian cricket board’s decision to direct the Kolkata Knight Riders franchise to release Bangladesh cricketer Mustafizur Rahman from this year’s IPL has triggered a chain of events with the Bangladesh board announcing it will not travel to India for the T20 World Cup starting next month.
On Saturday, the Indin board announced that owing to “recent developments going on all across”, the Knight Riders were directed to release Bangladesh pacer Rahman from his IPL contract. The left-arm quick had last month become the most expensive Bangladesh player in IPL history after getting snapped up by Kolkata for nearly $1 million.
The "recent developments" alluded to by the BCCI are ostensibly the deteriorating political relations between India and Bangladesh after former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled to New Delhi following protests over her regime in 2024.
In response, the Bangladesh Cricket Board announced that the team will not play their T20 World Cup matches in India.
"Following a thorough assessment of the prevailing situation and the growing concerns regarding the safety and security of the Bangladesh contingent in India and considering the advice from the Bangladesh government, the board of directors resolved that the Bangladesh national team will not travel to India for the tournament under the current conditions," the Bangladesh board said.
"In light of this decision, the BCB has formally requested the International Cricket Council (ICC), as the event authority, to consider relocating all of Bangladesh's matches to a venue outside India."
While political reasons have not been explicitly mentioned by the Indian board as the main factor behind Rahman’s exclusion, the move to first include the Bangladesh player in the auction list, getting him picked up and then removed has raised questions about the entire process.
Another case of isolation?
The decision to exclude Rahman from the IPL will be viewed as a political decision, which does not reflect well on Indian cricket.
Pakistan cricketers have already been excluded from the IPL while all bilateral cricket between the arch rivals has come to a halt. India and Pakistan players now compete exclusively in multi-team tournaments and that too on neutral territory. That has led to a scheduling nightmare for almost every major cricket tournament.
Bilateral cricket between India and Bangladesh has also slowed down considerably. India have not toured the country since 2022, when political relations between the countries started to take a turn for the worse. Bangladesh last toured India for a bilateral series in 2024, while a return tour seems to have been put on hold.
With Bangladesh also finding themselves on uncertain ground regarding cricket matches with India, it will create a bigger hole in the international cricket calendar.
T20 World Cup schedule
The immediate concern is the T20 World Cup which begins next month in India and Sri Lanka. Bangladesh were scheduled to play a majority of their group phase matches in the eastern city of Kolkata, which shares deep cultural and linguistic ties with Bangladesh.
The Bangladesh cricket board will now look to play their matches in Sri Lanka, just like Pakistan.
Already, protests have taken place in front of the respective embassies in both countries, which means the matter is unlikely to calm down any time soon.
With the Bangladesh board too deciding that travelling to India for the T20 World Cup is problematic, the entire tournament has been thrown into chaos.
What happens to regular cricket cycle?
There is another problem that had been bubbling under the surface for the past few years and has now come out in the open. International cricket has already been deprived of bilateral cricket between India and Pakistan. Now with Bangladesh also joining the list, it will create further complications.
India don’t play Pakistan in the World Test Championship. Add Bangladesh to it and that is two out of nine regular Test playing nations. If India and Bangladesh are also headed down an exclusionary path, all multi-team tournaments will have a big question mark next to them. And if that happens, a clear policy will have to be created so that bilateral issues don’t have such an impact on the wider game.
