If the International Olympic Committee awarded a gold medal for administrative chaos, geopolitical soap operas and an unrivaled ability to alienate its own fan base, cricket would sweep the stage.
Two years from returning to the Olympic stage in Los Angeles 2028, the gentleman’s game behaves less like a glitzy global sport and more like a runaway freight train: powerful, fast and unpredictably spinning as competing interests pull on the brakes.
The Olympic ideal is built on equal conditions. In contrast, cricket arrives at the gates of LA28 with heavy baggage: logistical gymnastics in the form of hybrid models, retaliatory boycotts and a revenue hierarchy that resembles a medieval tax system rather than a modern sporting democracy.
THE LATEST QUAKE
The latest jolt in this volatile ecosystem came this week from Islamabad. In a move that sent the T20 World Cup 2026 into limbo, the Pakistani government ordered the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) to boycott their high-stakes group game against India, scheduled for February 15 in Colombo. Pakistan will still take part in the tournament, but the marquee encounter, the one match that underlines the commercial logic of the whole event, is now a ghost game.
Voices from both sides are growing louder, calling for a boycott and a future without each other. But is this how world cricket should be run? Shouldn’t play unite rather than divide?
At the center of this storm is Mohsin Naqvi, PCB chairman and Pakistan’s interior minister. To understand the current boycott, we need to look back at the handshake controversy at the 2025 Asia Cup in Dubai.
So what happened at the Asia Cup?
This tournament provided a concentrated example of how sport and politics are increasingly intertwined on the pitch. After India defeated Pakistan in Dubai, the Indian players did not engage in the customary post-match handshake. What might once have been seen as a fleeting moment of tension was instead widely interpreted as a deliberate insult and quickly escalated into a diplomatic conversation. The silence in the middle of the packed stadium became symbolic: when the players failed to perform a simple courtesy, the cameras and commentators instinctively read it as evidence of a deeper breakdown behind the boundary rope.
Pakistan was hurt by the gesture – or the lack of it – but their reaction added to the controversy. The team threatened to boycott their next gameso the UAE’s opponents are waiting on the pitch. They protested match referee Andy Pycroft, demanding his removal and claiming he played a role in the handshake episode. Eventually, Pakistan took the field, but not before the match was delayed by more than an hour and the sporting event turned into theatre.
The subsequent presentation of the trophies only added fuel to the fire. Mohsin Naqvi found himself at the center of a bizarre, viral episode in which Indian players refused to accept a physical trophy from him. The image of manoeuvring administrators and players – the trophy effectively reduced to a bargaining chip – caused lasting reputational damage. For many viewers, the spectacle confirmed a growing fear: cricket administrations have become performative and overtly political in ways that undermine the sport’s international credibility. Indian players celebrate after 2025 Asian Cup final without trophy (GettyImages)
IS PAKISTAN STANDING BY BANGLADESH?
The trophy drama wasn’t just a social media meme. Perhaps this was the catalyst for the current impasse. Naqvi has since turned from host to agitator, accusing the ICC of double standards and using the threat of a boycott of the T20 World Cup as leverage against the global body.
Notably, the Pakistani government offered no formal explanation for the boycott directive. According to sources The ICC is yet to receive an official communication from the PCB. What is clear, however, is that Naqvi made the threat publicly last month, saying Pakistan would stand in solidarity with Bangladesh, who were shown the door from the T20 World Cup after they refused to travel to India on security grounds, which the ICC rejected.
If the India-Pakistan saga reads like a high-stakes political thriller, the situation in Bangladesh approaches a tragedy born of geopolitical spillover.
SELECTIVE MEDICINE?
Tensions escalated sharply when the BCCI issued a statement instructing the Kolkata Knight Riders to release pacer Mustafizur Rahman weeks before the 2026 IPL season. Dhaka’s response was swift and harsh: a nationwide ban on IPL broadcasts. But the most damaging fallout was reserved for the T20 World Cup. When the BCB asked for its fixtures to be moved to Sri Lanka, citing security concerns, the ICC – an organization usually receptive to “hybrid models” when India refuse to travel – rejected the request, saying there was no “verifiable threat”.
The result was unprecedented. Bangladesh withdrew in protest. For the first time since the tournament began, one of the world’s most cricket-obsessed nations will be absent, replaced by Scotland.
This is a glaring example of selective leniency – where security concerns justify hybrid models if you’re BCCI or PCB, but become grounds for exclusion if you’re anyone else?
To keep the lights on, the ICC is increasingly relying on a hybrid model, a Frankenstein structure that allows India and Pakistan to play their matches at neutral venues. It keeps a commercial engine running, but at a cost. The model doubles the logistical complexity, increases costs and leaves fans confused about venues, schedules and even whether matches will be played at all. Mohsin Naqvi with the Pakistan cricket team (GettyImages)
RICH DOLL POOR FAN EXPERIENCES
Predictably, money lubricates every moving part of this system. The BCCI represents a disproportionate share of the global commercial value of cricket and these financial flows have translated into significant institutional influence within the ICC. Accusations that the governing body is bending its own rules to avoid upsetting its biggest commercial stakeholder are not new; they’re just louder now. Whether these allegations are always technically accurate matters less than perception. In governance, perception often becomes policy.
While records squabble over millions, fans are routinely treated as collateral damage. Tickets for big ICC events have become synonymous with a mess. For the 2023 World Cup, tickets went on sale barely 40 days before opening match. The official booking platform for the 2026 T20 World Cup crashed instantly last month, trapping hundreds of thousands of fans in virtual queues for an India-Pakistan match that may not even happen.
“In any other sport, you book flights a year in advance,” says Gunalan, an avid cricket fan, in an interview with India Today.
“In cricket, you don’t even know which country the semi-final will be in until the week before.
CRICKET’S TROUBLE: NOT BLACK AND WHITE
The fault lines are both structural and cultural. Structurally, the ICC needs clear, pre-published criteria that indicate when a board can reject a product and when a replacement becomes inevitable. Revenue sharing models must be transparent and publicly explained. Anything less encourages the belief that some stakeholders are playing by different rules. Culturally, cricket administrators need to find ways to insulate the sport from short-term political theatre.
There are counterarguments worth acknowledging. Hosting multinational tournaments in politically sensitive regions with patchy infrastructure and complex security aspects is indeed difficult. The ICC can be criticized for communication and implementation, but it also operates under real diplomatic constraints that require flexibility. The danger lies in flexibility turning into improvisation and improvisation into cynicism.
The Olympics require a special administrative clarity that cricket has not embraced. There are no neutral sites at the Games, no bilateral negotiations folded into global plans, and no revenue models calibrated to commercial weight. Nations arrive at the village, compete within a unified framework and accept the same consequences. The system is blunt but consistent.
In contrast, cricket has evolved to accommodate exceptions. Many of these exceptions are understandable – regional security concerns, patchy infrastructure and the excessive commercial importance of some markets are realities that sport cannot ignore. But accommodation gradually became habit, and habit dissolved into improvisation. When every major tournament demands a bespoke solution, the first casualty is clarity.
Cricket does not have to give up its complexity to succeed globally. It needs to organize them better: clearer thresholds for participation, firmer timelines and governance structures that feel rule-bound rather than reactive. The Olympics will not stoop to accommodation for cricket. Cricket will have to meet the games on their terms.
– The end
Issued by:
Akshay Ramesh
Published on:
February 3, 2026
