Foreign & Public Diplomacy

Last month, India effortlessly outplayed Pakistan in a group stage match at a neutral venue for the T20 World Cup, which is being co-hosted by India and Sri Lanka. The match almost didn’t happen. The India-Pakistan rivalry, long intense, has worsened significantly in recent years—both in the world and on the cricket pitch.

Tensions reached a nadir after the two countries’ short military conflict last May in the wake of a terrorist attack in Indian-administered Kashmir. Last September, their national cricket teams met in the Asia Cup, and the Indian team refused to shake hands with their Pakistani counterparts. The Indian captain, Suryakumar Yadav, was fined for breaching the sport’s code of conduct, but the rivals still don’t shake hands to this day.

Last month, India effortlessly outplayed Pakistan in a group stage match at a neutral venue for the T20 World Cup, which is being co-hosted by India and Sri Lanka. The match almost didn’t happen. The India-Pakistan rivalry, long intense, has worsened significantly in recent years—both in the world and on the cricket pitch.

Tensions reached a nadir after the two countries’ short military conflict last May in the wake of a terrorist attack in Indian-administered Kashmir. Last September, their national cricket teams met in the Asia Cup, and the Indian team refused to shake hands with their Pakistani counterparts. The Indian captain, Suryakumar Yadav, was fined for breaching the sport’s code of conduct, but the rivals still don’t shake hands to this day.

Cricket is no longer governed by rules so much as by revenue, and as the home of the richest cricket organization in the world and a massive television audience, India now calls the shots. But its jingoism has transformed the sport into a schoolyard where it looks like the bully.

This year’s T20 World Cup, which concludes on March 8, has been more politicized than ever—with India’s rivalry with Pakistan as well as a new dispute with Bangladesh shaping the tournament. Once again, India is in the tournament’s final four. And as long as its cricket board controls the game’s purse and seems unlikely to relent, a sport that enthralls more than a billion people around the world is getting torn apart.

In a drama befitting a Bollywood spectacle, India and Pakistan nearly didn’t meet in the group stage on Feb. 15 because the Pakistani team said it would boycott the match out of solidarity with Bangladesh.

Why Bangladesh? The story begins with Mustafizur Rahman, a valuable Bangladeshi cricket asset and a fixture in the Indian Premier League. The Kolkata Knight Riders, an Indian franchise, acquired Rahman last December for around $1 million for the upcoming season. However, the team quickly released him, citing security concerns for the player amid diplomatic tensions between New Delhi and Dhaka over violence against Hindus in Bangladesh.

There is, of course, a political element at play: India and Bangladesh long had a close........

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