T20 World Cup and the Damage That Doesn’t Show Up on the Scoreboard

BCCI forced Mustafizur Rahman out of the IPL to appease a few “Indian spiritual and political leaders.” The demagogues beat their chests and claimed they had saved Hinduism, then went back to their lives, while India was left to gather the broken pieces. “No broken pieces,” people say but there are always broken pieces. No amount of kintsugi is going to fix that.

The immediate fallout, Bangladesh banned IPL, refused to play in the world cup, Scotland replaced Bangladesh in the World Cup, Mustafizur headed to the PSL and Pakistan refused to play India in the world cup. No big deal one might say, and frankly yes, none of the above change anything significant. India vs Pakistan though a media highlight isnt a contested cricket match anymore, Bangladesh is a nobody and Mustafizur still got paid. But the real damage doesn’t show up on the scoreboard.

Even if nothing dramatic happens on paper, these moments accumulate quietly. Trust erodes. Resentment builds. Soft power leaks away. That is how nations lose influence, not in one dramatic collapse, but in a thousand small, stupid decisions made to satisfy temporary outrage.   

India is beset with two unfriendly neighbours, Pakistan and China; now add Bangladesh to the mix. Agreed, Bangladesh was already headed there, but why nudge it further? The people of Bangladesh are bound to be incensed by how one of their own was treated by India, especially when emotions are already high. Now that Bangladesh is kicked out of the World Cup, they will be further incensed. Bangladesh by itself cannot challenge India, but with the help of China and Pakistan, it can become a real thorn, do we need that? The government should be thinking of the big picture; instead, we have short-sighted leaders looking for a quick buck.

India aspires to be a leader but behaves like a small-minded bully. A leader never shows their strength; it is simply acknowledged. This was one instance where the government should have intervened, allowed Mustafizur to play or changed venues for Bangladesh with a wry smile. It was not a time to flex muscle; that should have come later. The government lost the big picture (much like the “Trump ended the Indo-Pak war” claim) and will end up losing face on the world stage. As they say, the naive forgive and forget, the fools neither forgive nor forget, the wise forgive but do not forget.

We will not even deign to respond to claims of “saving Hindus” or “punishing Bangladesh.” All this drama stank like a fart in the wind; the only people who went back laughing were the “Indian spiritual and political leaders” who got a few minutes of fame for the next election.

The scariest part of this whole drama was the silence. No leaders calling for reason, no press questioning the collective conscience, no discussions on television, no trending hashtag for common sense — just silence. Was it tacit acceptance by the people of the country, or resignation? Did people agree, not care, or were they scared? Since when do we allow the outrage of a select few “Indian spiritual and political leaders” to dictate what our country should do?

I want to believe there were voices of reason in the government and the BCCI, but I also believe they were scared to take a rational path for fear of the outrage of “Indian spiritual and political leaders.” They were more afraid of the image they had created for themselves than of damaging the image of the country. They ended up capitulating to performative outrage for vote banks. Is that what our country deserves?

Politicians will do what they can get away with. If this passes without question, without discomfort, without consequence, then this is not just a failure of leadership, it is a failure of citizenship. A country is not defined by the noise of its loudest demagogues, but by the standards its people refuse to let go of.