IPL 2025: India Versus Pakistan War Is On, BCCI, STOP IPL Season 18 | Opinion

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has been caught sleeping at the wheel for the second time in a month. When the Pahalgam massacre of innocents incident happened on April 22, the IPL Governing Council should have immediately halted the IPL 2025 match between Lucknow Super Giants and Kolkata Knight Riders in Lucknow.

It was sheer callousness the IPL authorities allowed the match to take place as India was in shock after 26 innocents had been butchered by terrorists from Pakistan. It was only a day later, on April 23, when Mumbai Indians played Sunrisers Hyderabad, where symbolic black bands were worn. Come on, is the IPL so big that you do not care for human lives and emotions?

Can't host IPL 2025 in war-like situation

It is well known, that the war-like situation between India and Pakistan had been building up for weeks. The moment India started defending the attack on its international border, the IPL should have been stopped. If not, hosting matches in North India and Jaipur should have been scrapped.

What was indeed ridiculous, on Thursday night, the IPL allowed a match between Punjab Kings and Delhi Capitals to be staged in Dharamsala, before being stalled. The BCCI and the IPL Governing Council are not visually handicapped and they do not know where Dharamsala is situated geographically.

It is a full-blown war now between India and Pakistan, where the State of Pakistan itself has shown it is no different from Jihadis. Imagine, Jammu was being attacked on Thursday night and so many more cities in Rajasthan were tense. And an IPL match was allowed to be staged! Crazy.

How and why was this allowed, because lives were at risk. The IPL is club cricket at best. Yes, people enjoy club cricket but this is not the time for having fun when the brave Indian Defence Forces are safeguarding India and at the same time smashing the Pakistan terror camps as well as destroying their installations with sophisticated missiles.

Is the IPL so greedy that in the fear of losing money and more, they want to risk the lives of cricketers, which include foreigners as well as paying the public? It is a shame, that the IPL, instead of putting on hold the 2025 edition, has postponed a firm decision and will now hold a meeting on Friday.

IPL 2025 PBKS vs DC Match Abandoned

Was it not serious enough when Pakistan was attacking India, the BCCI should not have fallen lure of the lucre and stopped the IPL. This is shameful since the Dharmasala venue in Himachal Pradesh is not far from the 'war zone' that the border has become. If Jammu has been targeted, the entire Amristar and down till Chandigarh, there is a plea to stay indoors from the administration.

You cannot have matches in North India or in Jaipur. Just put the IPL on hold. This is as mindless and shameful as the IPL being shifted out of India when the COVID-19 pandemic struck hard in 2021.

A match in New Delhi's Arun Jaitley Stadium saw players falling ill. There were also rumours the Bio Bubble was breached at that time. The IPL bosses wasted little time in shifting the IPL to Dubai. Again, it was for the greed of money.

Imagine, there were some social media handles posting videos from Dharamsala last night which showed panic after the stadium had to be evacuated. For the BCCI, shifting the teams and TV crews out of the scenic city became a priority. How come the BCCI is so obsessed with money and riches, that there is scant respect for humans? What if something had gone wrong in Dharmasala? The BCCI could not have answered.

It's war, officially, between India and Pakistan. Stop the IPL for God's sake.

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The author is a senior sports journalist who has covered multiple sports for over three decades.