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Cricket diplomacy has always remained one of the major sources causing tension between India and Pakistan under their historical multileveled conflict. The leaders of both nations consider cricket an effective tool to undermine each other’s potential in sports diplomacy while having a greater association with cricket. Both South Asian arch-rivals have explicit competition in sports, which exhibits a broader framework of varying historical, multilevel confrontations between them.
The mainstream politicians of both states use cricket as an appropriate source of advancing their specific political agendas aligned with the victory of cricket matches, as the game is top-rated in both states. Indian-Pakistani leaders’ contesting behaviors consider cricket a battlefield for augmenting their diplomatic estrangements, which originates from historical clashes of the subcontinent. In this way, a vivid combination of politics and sports has prevailed in South Asian regional politics, where Indian and Pakistani governments have undermined the role of cricket in altering their conventional formats of bilateral hostility.
Cricket diplomacy has historically intensified tensions between India and Pakistan, with leaders using the sport to advance political agendas.
Instead of treating cricket as an essential element of fostering strong social and cultural connections, the governments of the two states have attached their respective cricket diplomacy to decades-long hostile interaction. The growing rivalry in sports has convinced the two-sided leadership to persistently develop their uncompromising and intransigent positions in sports, where New Delhi always showed its alleged reservations against Pakistan in matters of regional and international sports politics.
The ongoing India-Pakistan tension over ICC Champions Trophy 2025 reflects New Delhi’s approach for denying the role of cricket diplomacy in in the region, which is strongly connected with two-sided contesting socio-political and socio-cultural state frameworks. The clash over ICC’s upcoming tournament underlined the soft power of sports in South Asia and made it an additional factor intensifying the regional security environment.
The ICC Champions Trophy 2025 was scheduled in Pakistan (February 19 to March 09, 2025) at its popular venues of Lahore, Karachi, and Rawalpindi with the hope of empowering the soft image of cricket in the conflicted region politics parallel to effectively accommodating international teams and entertaining their worldwide fans. This event was initially expected to host eight cricket teams from Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, England, India, New Zealand, South Africa, and Pakistan.
The venues for the matches of these teams were the National Stadium of Karachi, Gaddafi Stadium of Lahore, and Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium. The Indian refusal to play in Pakistan has changed the proposed plan of this tournament while disturbing the vision and scope of cricket under New Delhi’s alleged security concerns. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) formally informed the International Cricket Council (ICC) about its decision to avoid travel to Pakistan for the Champions Trophy.
India’s refusal to participate in the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 in Pakistan underscores its critical stance on cricket diplomacy.
India’s critical approach to Pakistan’s improving sports diplomacy has a brief history, which has caused major political and diplomatic shifts between New Delhi and Islamabad. Contrasting Pakistan’s efforts to promote the soft image of cricket in the region, Indian formal state authorities, under different political allegations, often used cricket as a form of resistance capable of exerting diplomatic pressures on Pakistan. Its political weight in New Delhi’s broader anti-Pakistani behavior can be assessed through several cases of cricket politics cemented in varying security concerns.
In addition to having bilateral conflicting sports trends, Indian politicians view cricket as an inseparable element of a regional hostile climate in which cricket cannot be treated as a source of cooperation and collaboration. Indian government always considered playing cricket matches with Pakistan as a matter of national pride supporting its regional dominance, and victory over Pakistan symbolizes Indian political strength in the region.
In this way, the socio-political orientations of Indian society refuse sports engagement with Pakistan under the firm belief that the cricket series with Pakistan will undermine Indian national pride and regional standing. This societal behavior prevailed in the regional conflicted history of South Asia and can be traced to the history of India-Pakistan diplomatic distancing.
This diplomatic alienation has resulted in changing match venues, boycotting or refusing to play on a bilateral basis, and stigmatizing Pakistan’s national image in global cricket diplomacy. In addition to the change of ICC Champions Trophy’s venue in 2009, New Zealand’s refusal to play in Pakistan due to unproven Indian security reports in 2021 shows New Delhi’s quest for isolating Pakistan in global sports diplomacy.
Based on the scenario mentioned above, there is no harm in saying that the scope of cricket diplomacy in South Asia is deteriorating due to the obstinately evolving New Delhi’s critical position on the major sports events such as the ICC Cricket World Cup, ICC Champions Trophy, and ICC T20 World Cup. Aligning with its mainstream political agenda, the societal celebrations of cricket victories over Pakistan have become a national celebration across India due to its government’s specific behavior, seeing victory as the regional dominance of Indian cultural supremacy.
The ongoing rivalry in sports has led to a deterioration of cricket’s role as a tool for fostering cooperation between the two nations.
It shows the Indian inflexibilities in supporting and promoting various opportunities for cricket diplomacy, which consequently hamper the scope of peace and stability in the nuclearized subcontinent. While considering the intense regional security landscape and historical context of the New Delhi-Islamabad rivalry, it is essential for the Indian government to seriously address the question of not playing with Pakistan or opposing Islamabad’s efforts for exploring different platforms of bilateral diplomatic engagements.
A diplomatically positive and politically constructive approach designed on pragmatic lines could be helpful in this regard. Adopting such an approach could allow New Delhi to revisit its conventional considerations regarding arranging and diversifying bilateral sports engagement with Islamabad.
In this way, the Indian government must change its conventional stance by departing its diplomatic estrangement from historical belligerent thinking while espousing a relatively flexible and accommodating behavior. The rejection of peace initiatives through cricket diplomacy could allow New Delhi to accept the opening of regional doors for progressive dialogues and meaningful discussion with Islamabad.
The formulation of a combined consultative body for managing or averting the overwhelming pressures of cricket politics could allow the two-sided mainstream leadership to address their alleged concerns under the auspices of the ICC.
The author is an Assistant Professor, the Department of International Relations, NUML, Islamabad. (arehman@numl.edu.pk). https://www.numl.edu.pk/faculty/446
