The reality of the sport is that the flap of a butterfly’s wings in local Indian politics can cause a typhoon in another country’s cricketing fortunes.
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In 1993, a rising star kicked off a legendary Bollywood career with back-to-back megahits in Darr and Baazigar, where he introduced audiences to the concept of the ‘anti-hero’. Thirty-three years later, it led to Bangladesh being expelled from a World Cup.
If this paragraph makes no sense to you, there are some crucial details that need to be unpacked to make this connection clear. But at the heart of this story is one disturbing new reality — international cricket today has become a tool of India’s ruling Hindutva regime.
From Mustafizur’s ouster to Bangladesh’s expulsion
Let’s begin with the basic details.
On January 2, a member of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Sangeet Som, attacked India’s most popular Muslim figure , Shahrukh Khan, calling him a traitor. Shahrukh owns the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), a cricket franchise of the Indian Premier League that had selected Bangladesh cricketer Mustafizur Rahman. Threatening Mustafizur with “dire consequences” and claiming Shahrukh had “no right to live” in India, Som’s calls led to a chorus of hatred against Shahrukh and Mustafizur.
Within days, the Indian cricket board, the BCCI “requested” KKR to release the player, vaguely citing “recent developments going on all across”.
Almost immediately, Bangladesh’s Sports Adviser Asif Nazrul reacted , ordering the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) to ask the game’s governing body, the International Cricket Council (ICC), to change the venue of th
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