‘Operation Sindoor’: How cricket became latest India-Pakistan weapon of war

Islamabad, Pakistan – When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed parliament connected July 29, much than 2 months aft the four-day May clash with Pakistan, helium hailed India’s subject enactment – dubbed “Operation Sindoor” – arsenic a “victory”, but said it was not over.

“Operation Sindoor remains progressive and resolute,” Modi said during his 102-minute address.

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Two months later, aft India bushed Pakistan successful a gripping Asia Cup cricket last connected September 28, Modi invoked the spectre of warfare again portion congratulating the victors. “Operation Sindoor connected the games field. Outcome is the aforesaid – India wins! Congrats to our cricketers,” helium posted connected X.

#OperationSindoor connected the games field.

Outcome is the aforesaid – India wins!

Congrats to our cricketers.

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 28, 2025

The message, accidental analysts, was clear: The Asia Cup, meant to observe cricket crossed the world’s largest continent, had go a battlefield betwixt India and Pakistan, and cricket itself had turned into the latest limb of war.

Modi’s comments capped weeks of bitter acrimony, some connected and disconnected the field, that came to predominate a tourney that began amid bitterness. The flashpoint aft the last was India’s determination not to accept the Asia Cup trophy from Mohsin Naqvi, who is the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) seat arsenic good arsenic the Pakistan Cricket Board president and, significantly, Pakistan’s national curate for interior, 1 of the astir almighty civilian positions successful the country.

“We person decided not to instrumentality the Asia Cup trophy from the ACC chairman, who happens to beryllium 1 of the main [political] leaders of Pakistan,” Devajit Saikia, the president of the Board of Control for Cricket successful India (BCCI), told the Indian quality bureau ANI aft the final.

The ACC nether Naqvi, alternatively of handing the trophy and victor medals implicit to the Indian squad regardless, took them distant from the podium, leaving India to observe with a makeshift “shadow trophy”.

Naqvi besides deed backmost astatine Modi’s societal media station that compared the triumph to a battlefield victory. “If warfare was your measurement of pride, past already records your humiliating defeats astatine Pakistan’s hands. No cricket lucifer tin rewrite that truth. Dragging warfare into athletics lone exposes desperation and disgraces the precise tone of the game,” the Pakistani curate wrote connected X.

If warfare was your measurement of pride, past already records your humiliating defeats astatine Pakistan’s hands. No cricket lucifer tin rewrite that truth. Dragging warfare into athletics lone exposes desperation and disgraces the precise tone of the crippled https://t.co/lqiUATm3wX

— Mohsin Naqvi (@MohsinnaqviC42) September 29, 2025

The Asia Cup was mired successful contention adjacent earlier a shot was bowled, with voices successful India – politicians, broadcasters and erstwhile players – urging the BCCI to boycott Pakistan. Suryakumar Yadav, the Indian captain, faced a backlash astatine location aft being seen shaking hands with Naqvi and Pakistan skipper Salman Ali Agha astatine a pre-tournament quality conference.

During India’s archetypal lucifer connected September 15, the squad declined to shingle hands with Pakistani players, a motion repeated successful consequent fixtures, including the final.

For Irfan Nooruddin, a prof of Indian authorities astatine Georgetown University, the aborted trophy ceremonial was the “culmination of increasing jingoism” successful India.

He said the Indian squad would unluckily beryllium remembered for refusing to shingle hands with opponents and declining an grant from an authoritative acting successful his ceremonial capacity.

But helium besides criticised Naqvi.

“No 1 emerges from this fiasco looking good. Naqvi’s determination to instrumentality the trophy and medals reflects mediocre judgement and taste, arsenic bash his societal media posts. Unfortunately, authorities and cricket are intrinsically linked successful South Asia, and it is clip for cricketing governance to necessitate that its enactment relinquish immoderate governmental roles,” helium told Al Jazeera.

Sporting gestures turned sour

The 2 sides person not staged a bilateral cricket bid since the 2008 Mumbai attacks, successful which gunmen with links to Pakistan killed 166 people, isolated from a little three-match bid successful India successful precocious 2012.

Pakistan’s skipper Salman Agha receives the runner-up cheque from Asian Cricket Council (ACC) and Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) president Mohsin Naqvi during the presumption ceremonial astatine the extremity of the Asia Cup 2025 [Sajjad Hussain/AFP]

Since then, they person met lone successful multiteam events. The past last betwixt them was the 2017 Champions Trophy successful London, erstwhile Pakistan famously upset India astatine The Oval.

Relations betwixt the nuclear-armed neighbours person deteriorated for years and plunged further this April aft the Pahalgam onslaught successful Indian-administered Kashmir, erstwhile gunmen killed 26 civilians.

India blamed Pakistan for the killings and, among different measures, withdrew its information from the six-decade-old Indus Waters Treaty, which governs the six rivers of the Indus basin.

Pakistan denied responsibility, but successful aboriginal May, the neighbours fought an aggravated four-day aerial war, targeting each other’s subject bases with missiles and drones, the astir superior confrontation betwixt them successful astir 3 decades.

Even earlier those clashes, sporting ties had frayed: India refused to question to Pakistan for the Champions Trophy successful February, the archetypal large planetary tourney Pakistan had hosted since 1996.

Hartosh Singh Bal, enforcement exertion astatine the Indian governmental monthly The Caravan, said that athletics has small capableness to thaw diplomatic tensions erstwhile tribalism and hostility are being stoked.

“I person nary thought of what developed connected the Pakistani side, but if the Indian committee wanted cricket to beryllium a conveyance for diplomatic hostility, past they should person opted retired of the match,” Bal told Al Jazeera of the Asia Cup final.

“Once they made the prime to play, the players should person avoided the boorishness displayed successful avoiding handshakes oregon not collecting the trophy,” helium added.

Fragile cricket diplomacy

The weaponisation of cricket arsenic an instrumentality of struggle marks a 180-degree displacement from however the athletics has agelong functioned connected the subcontinent – arsenic a instrumentality of diplomacy, adjacent astatine the astir tense moments successful bilateral ties.

In aboriginal 1987, weeks aft India lined up forces on the disputed borderline betwixt the neighbours, Pakistan’s subject ruler, General Ziaul Haq, visited India nether Rajiv Gandhi’s premiership to ticker a cricket match.

Even arsenic players of the 2 sides often engaged successful heated banter and sledging connected the field, the athletics served arsenic a uncommon arena that allowed the neighbours to negociate their hostilities successful the years that followed. India and Pakistan jointly hosted the 1996 World Cup, and past India toured Pakistan for one-day matches successful 1997.

Then, successful 1999, Pakistan returned to India for a afloat Test series, hardly 8 months aft some countries had tested atomic bombs, sparking nationalist frenzy connected some sides of the borderline and triggering planetary fears of a struggle involving atomic weapons.

The 1999 sojourn produced 1 of cricket’s astir memorable scenes. After their triumph successful Chennai’s MA Chidambaram Stadium, Pakistan’s players jogged a thigh astir the crushed and were met with a lasting ovation.

The Pakistani team’s manager past was Shehryar Khan, a erstwhile diplomat and a comparative of Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi, India’s erstwhile captain.

His son, Ali Khan, an subordinate prof astatine the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), said that governments person historically tried, sometimes discreetly, to usage cricket to chill hostilities. This has present changed, helium added.

“The Indian government’s hostility towards Pakistan is unprecedented. They whitethorn person their reasons, but the poisoning of minds has dispersed to a overmuch greater portion of the population,” Ali Khan told Al Jazeera.

He suggested that aft the Pahalgam attack, calls to boycott the lucifer meant that erstwhile New Delhi opted to play, the easiest mode to blunt home backlash was to amusement other hostility connected the field.

“I don’t deliberation you tin pin the blasted connected the Pakistan squad connected this occasion. They did not initially behave successful a hostile mode that was extracurricular the tone of the game, and of sporting encounters overall,” Khan, who is besides the writer of Cricket successful Pakistan: Nation, Identity, and Politics, added.

Politics eclipses cricket

The May confrontation progressive aerial engagements and the usage of missiles and drones. Pakistan said it changeable down astatine slightest six Indian jets. India said it damaged Pakistani airbases and degraded air-defence assets.

Pakistan visited India to play the semifinal of the 2011 World Cup successful India, wherever then-Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh welcomed his Pakistani counterpart, Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani [File: Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images]

The ceasefire connected May 10,  which Pakistan says was brokered by the United States, a assertion India rejects, did not extremity the communicative battle.

Each broadside framed the occurrence arsenic a vindication of their positions. Pakistan highlighted aerial successes and praised the US president for “brokering the peace”, nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize. India insisted that its superiority had stopped the escalation, without immoderate third-party intervention.

Modi, successful his July 29 speech, said that a Pakistani subject authoritative had “pleaded” with Indian forces to stop. “Their serviceman told ours, ‘Don’t deed america immoderate more; we can’t endure immoderate longer’,” the Indian premier curate said.

Bal and different commentators reason that Modi utilized the situation to people governmental points. “There is thing that Modi volition not beverage for governmental gain,” the mag exertion said.

Former Pakistani High Commissioner to India Abdul Basit agreed.

“The warfare hysteria from his viewpoint is besides indispensable for home politics. There are elections successful Bihar adjacent month, and authorities elections adjacent year,” helium said, referring to upcoming authorities elections successful 1 of India’s largest states, and consequent polls.

Pakistani governmental expert Cyril Almeida suggested that Modi had been rattled by planetary reactions to the May clash, aft which Islamabad appears to person diplomatically sold its communicative better.

“In punching down connected sportsmen, helium seems keen to alteration the communicative successful immoderate tiny mode helium can,” Almeida told Al Jazeera.

Camaraderie turns cold

Despite the chill betwixt governments, relationships among galore players person usually been cordial.

Before Pakistani players were excluded from the Indian Premier League, the world’s biggest franchise cricket league, aft the 2008 Mumbai attacks, respective had featured successful the inaugural play and won admiration.

Subsequently, contempt gathering lone successful multi-team events, players from some teams person shown camaraderie connected the field, with iconic Indian players Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma peculiarly fashionable successful Pakistan.

But with those older stars nary longer connected the team, and the accomplishment of a newer generation, analysts accidental the idiosyncratic bonds that erstwhile softened governmental friction are weakening.

Ali Khan argued that earlier generations shared a much sporting outlook, calved of much predominant contact, portion the contiguous procreation has had less opportunities to physique ties.

“I besides consciousness that the situation is truthful hostile successful India that nary 1 would hazard opposing what is fundamentally a authorities directive to support a precise hostile stance towards Pakistan,” helium said.

“So had those elder players, specified arsenic Kohli oregon others, inactive been successful the team, I deliberation they would person struggled to instrumentality a antithetic path, adjacent if they didn’t needfully privation to bash that.”

Livelihood implicit rivalry?

While the men’s teams are not scheduled to conscionable again immoderate clip soon, the women’s sides are owed to look each different successful Sri Lanka connected October 5, during the Women’s World Cup, hosted by India.

The broader calendar, however, is constrained by politics. Following India’s lack from Champions Trophy matches successful Pakistan – India’s matches and the last were hosted successful Dubai astatine the BCCI’s insistence – the PCB protested. An statement was reached that Pakistan would not question to India for tournaments done 2027, affecting events specified arsenic the Women’s World Cup and the 2026 men’s T20 World Cup, and would play its matches astatine neutral venues arsenic India did during the Champions Trophy.

For Ali Khan, the quality betwixt the 1999 circuit and contiguous is the comparative unwillingness of some governments to re-establish contact.

“There was small of the hostility amongst the wide colonisation that we spot today,” helium said. “Unfortunately, today, we are successful uncharted territory. Relations person ne'er been worse, and… for an extended period. People-to-people contacts person been severed. I spot nary anticipation of a reversal unless the enactment connected some sides shows spot and courageousness to look beyond themselves and their constrictive interests,” helium added.

Nooruddin is little pessimistic. While helium condemned the unfastened hostilities disposable astatine the tournament, helium argued that astir citizens successful some countries attraction much astir livelihoods than expansive gestures of rivalry.

“Whipping up nationalistic fervour lone benefits the politicians who question to distract and divide, alternatively than unify and govern. It is hard to beryllium optimistic successful the existent moment, but leaderships yet bash change, and, erstwhile they do, caller possibilities for practice emerge,” the Washington, DC-based world said.

But Islamabad-based Almeida warned that Modi’s instrumentality to powerfulness past twelvemonth for a 3rd term, which runs until 2029, means accelerated alteration is improbable immoderate clip soon.

Some analysts successful Pakistan had hoped a 3rd word would propulsion Modi towards a bequest of peacemaking. Instead, Almeida said, the Modi of 2025 appears to beryllium an “unreconstructed fig who seeks dominance, not accommodation”. Even successful cricket.