In South Asia, power has never been exercised only through borders, armies, or treaties. It has flowed through trade routes, water sharing, media, and quietly but decisively through cricket. What we are witnessing today is not a sporting dispute but the consolidation of regional hierarchy, with India at the apex and the rest of South Asia forced into varying degrees of compliance.
Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif’s call for an alternative global cricket body was quickly dismissed by Indian commentators as political theatrics. Yet such calls emerge only when institutional pathways collapse. His accusation that the International Cricket Council has become “hostage to Indian political interests” reflects a deeper South Asian anxiety: that multilateral platforms no longer function as neutral spaces when India’s interests are involved.
From Regional Power to Regional Enforcer
India’s dominance of cricket mirrors its broader regional posture assertive, asymmetrical, and increasingly intolerant of dissent. The Board of Control for Cricket in India is no longer just a sporting body; it is a strategic actor projecting Indian power across South Asia.
Under the current ICC revenue model, India controls nearly 40% of global cricket income. This financial concentration replicates a familiar regional pattern: economic dependency used to discipline neighbours. Smaller South Asian nations, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are structurally discouraged from challenging Indian preferences because the costs are existential.
In such an environment, “choice” becomes theoretical.
Pakistan: Too Big to Obey, Too Risky to Exclude
Pakistan occupies a unique and uncomfortable position in this hierarchy. Unlike smaller neighbours, it cannot be easily absorbed or ignored. Its boycott threat ahead of the T20 World Cup was not an act of withdrawal but a geopolitical signal, participation without consent.
This is precisely why Jay Shah, wearing both ICC authority and Indian institutional legacy, was pushed into reluctant diplomacy. The India–Pakistan fixture is not just a match; it is the single most valuable commodity in global cricket. Excluding Pakistan would fracture the commercial spine of the tournament.
The ICC’s response, dispatching Deputy Chair Imran Khwaja for quiet back-channel talks, exposed the truth: the institution cannot enforce neutrality when its biggest shareholder is also a regional hegemon.
Bangladesh and the Cost of Defiance
If Pakistan represents resistance, Bangladesh represents vulnerability.
The BCCI’s unilateral decision to release Mustafizur Rahman from the IPL, citing “political developments” - triggered a chain reaction that ended with Bangladesh refusing to tour India and being replaced by Scotland. This was not a scheduling issue; it was disciplined by substitution.
In South Asian terms, the message was unmistakable: defiance invites isolation. This is how hierarchy is maintained, not through overt bans, but through quiet rearrangements that punish without announcing punishment.
Normalising the Unthinkable
Former Indian cricketer Harbhajan Singh openly declared that India does not need Pakistan and can survive without it. Such statements matter not because they are policy, but because they reveal a mindset where exclusion is considered a legitimate option.
This is how dominance becomes normalised. First rhetorically. Then administratively. Finally, structurally.
South Asia has seen this pattern before, in trade negotiations, river water disputes, and regional diplomacy. Cricket is simply the latest arena.
The ICC as a Hollow Multilateral Shell
In theory, the ICC is a global institution. In practice, it resembles many South Asian multilateral frameworks where one power sets the rules while others adapt. When India controls revenue, scheduling, hosting rights, and broadcast windows, neutrality becomes impossible.
The result is a system where:
Smaller South Asian nations hesitate to speak.
Pakistan is managed as a “problem” rather than a stakeholder.
Decisions are framed as commercial inevitabilities rather than political choices.
This is not governance; it is a managed imbalance.
The Long-Term Cost for the Region
India’s approach may deliver short-term control, but it carries long-term risks. A region where sport mirrors political hierarchy will eventually fracture. Associate nations will stagnate. Bilateral distrust will harden. And cricket, once South Asia’s rare shared language, will become another theatre of rivalry and resentment.
You cannot build regional legitimacy on unilateral power.
If the ICC continues to function as an extension of Indian dominance rather than a counterbalance to it, South Asia will not see a golden age of cricket but a familiar story of centralised authority, silenced peripheries, and institutional decay.
Cricket does not need a new empire. It needs a genuinely plural order. Without it, the game will survive, but only as a reflection of power, not as a contest of equals.
Thank You
Faisal Caesar
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