While India and Bangladesh wait to see who will blink first, the International Cricket Council has made it clear that there is no security threat in India. This is Bangladesh’s reason for not wishing to come to India for their World T20 matches commencing next month. It has weakened the former’s case while strengthening the latter’s resolve.

Bangladesh’s hasty announcement followed India’s hasty announcement to drop their bowler Mustafizur Rahman from the IPL after he had been picked in the auction. Storms have a way of spreading beyond the teacups where they originate. As the larger country with greater resources and a higher ranking, India might have been expected to act with better understanding and tolerance. But the Board of Control for Cricket in India allowed itself to be bullied by the government into dropping Mustafizur.

The player had nothing to do with the violence in Bangladesh which claimed Hindu lives. Nor should India’s foreign policy be decided by trolls on social media — it was a message here that set the ball rolling. But such niceties tend to be ignored in the ‘mine-is-bigger-than-yours’ type of street fight. National pride is often so brittle.

Bangladesh fans have been allegedly manhandled in India in recent years — in Kanpur at a Test and in Pune during the World Cup. The stories kept changing, however. The potential for crowd trouble exists anywhere in the world. Playing in southern India reduces that possibility, but the ICC has to make that call.

Brinkmanship

Brinkmanship comes easily to governments and sports bodies (sometimes they are the same). It doesn’t take a professional logician to work out that the side which has more to lose will ultimately give in. Bangladesh are ranked tenth in the world while India are No.1, so the arithmetic is not difficult. Still, there might be political mileage to be gained from standing up to the bigger country. Confronting the weaker in similar style does not carry the same traction.

Former Bangladesh skipper Tamim Iqbal’s has been a rare voice of reason in all this. He has urged his cricket board to avoid being driven by “public emotion” while deciding, and to be aware that a wrong decision could have an “impact 10 years down the line”.

Bangladesh can point to the fact that every time India refused to play an ICC tournament in Pakistan, they were allowed to play their matches in either the UAE or Sri Lanka. But that will not do them much good. To equate sporting responses with national pride (India have done this too, but they are confident of getting away with it) is both silly and dangerous. And if politicians — in this case the advisor to Bangladesh’s sports ministry — take a hard stance, they do their country’s sport much harm.

The situation should never have been allowed to get this far. The BCCI, its arm twisted by the government, should not have in turn twisted the arm of Kolkata Knight Riders and Shah Rukh Khan into dropping Mustafizur.

Wrong strategy

If Bangladesh had a genuine issue with security, a quiet word with the BCCI and the ICC might led to a shift in the venues of their matches. Such diplomacy should be conducted behind closed doors and not in the full glare of publicity for two reasons. One, it tends to raise the temperature till the issue becomes unbearably hot. Two, when the decision goes against one side, it makes them look ridiculous. A series of wrongs do not make a right.

The World T20 commences on February 7, so common sense and decency might still win the day. The ICC being neither a proactive body nor one that reacts quickly to developing situations, has been kowtowing to the BCCI for so long that most do not see these as separate entities. If the BCCI keeps quiet, it will be up to the Bangladesh Cricket Board to ignore the perceived insult, forget national pride and change its mind. There will be talk of cricket winning, of India’s kindness and Bangladesh’s ability to see the bigger picture.

Whatever happens can be spun to favour one or both of the countries or indeed the ICC. After all, finding scapegoats is a pastime for the apparently slighted.