The decision to instruct IPL franchise Kolkata Knight Riders to release Bangladesh pacer Mustafizur Rahman from its squad wasn’t the outcome of discussions among members of the Indian cricket board — the league’s governing council wasn’t consulted, either.
The decision, which resulted in Bangladesh refusing to travel to India for next month’s T20 World Cup, was taken at the highest level in the board, it has learnt.
“We ourselves got to know about this through the media. There was no discussion. No suggestion was taken from our side,” a top BCCI official, who is also associated with the IPL, revealed.
The ongoing political crisis involving the two countries has spilled over into the cricket pitch in recent months, with the Bangladesh women’s tour of India postponed indefinitely, and the Indian men’s tour of Bangladesh in August in doubt.
Bilateral tensions have escalated over the past few weeks after a Hindu man was lynched and burned to death in Bangladesh following allegations of blasphemy. Last month, India’s Ministry of External Affairs had condemned what it called “unremitting hostility against minorities”.
Bangladesh’s interim leader, Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, condemned the lynching, saying there was no space for such violence in the new Bangladesh. “The perpetrators of this heinous crime will not be spared,” his government had said.
In this context, KKR’s decision to pick Mustafizur for IPL 2026 had led to the franchise owner, Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan, being targeted.
