In Bangladesh, cricket is far more than a national obsession. Combined with its enormous commercial appeal, the game has been turned into the ultimate political currency, reports UNB.
The recent dissolution of the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) and the lightning-fast installation of a politically connected ad-hoc committee expose a harsh reality: governments may change, but the state or ruling dispensation's suffocating grip on the country's most popular sport remains completely unbroken.
For decades, ruling regimes have understood that controlling cricket is a way to control the masses. During Sheikh Hasina's long period of rule, often described by political analysts as authoritarian, the BCB functioned as little more than a direct wing of the state machinery.
The partisan dominance was absolute. It spread into every level of administration, from high-level boardroom decisions down to the stadium gates. It reached a point where the national team was actually led by sitting members of parliament. This was not a coincidence; it was a strategy to use the sport as a populist tool, designed to unify a fractured public under the ruling party's banner while masking the government's deeper failures.
When the Awami League government collapsed in August 2024, the BCB naturally fell into chaos.
The power vacuum led to the emergence of a new board headed by Aminul Islam Bulbul, formed under the watch of the interim government. It was presented to the public as a necessary transition to keep the sport stable. However, in the complex landscape of Bangladeshi sports politics, this board quickly became a target for the next political force waiting in the wings.
This week, the National Sports Council (NSC)-now operating under the newly elected BNP-led government-dissolved Aminul's board, citing severe electoral fraud and manipulation. While the allegations of rigged e-voting and administrative coercion are serious, the underlying motive feels far too familiar to observers.
This ouster does not look like a crusade for transparency; it appears to be a calculated purge. It is a move to erase the interim government's footprint and allow a new regime to capture the board's massive resources and public influence.
The composition of the new 11-member ad-hoc committee, led by former national captain Tamim Iqbal, clearly reflects this political reality. While the committee is tasked with holding a fair election within three months, it is heavily stacked with immediate family members of senior BNP figures-including the sons of both the Home Minister and the Finance Minister, alongside a BNP-affiliated lawyer.
The faces in the boardroom have changed, but the structural strategy remains identical: a new political net has simply been cast over the BCB.
This cyclical power grab reveals a deep hypocrisy within the nation's sports administration. The same political factions that spent years condemning the Awami League for weaponising the cricket board are now eagerly benefiting from the same system.
The NSC's intervention is a blunt instrument of control, one that flagrantly ignores the International Cricket Council's (ICC) strict rules against government interference.
Yet, the usual threat of an ICC suspension for state interference may be hollow this time. The sport's global governing body is currently chaired by the powerful Indian administrator Jay Shah, and his leadership operates within a sensitive geopolitical context.
During the interim government's tenure, Aminul's board drew New Delhi's ire by refusing to play in India during the last T20 World Cup, citing legitimate security concerns amid rising tensions between the two countries.
