A four-day armed conflict between the two nuclear-power nations, India and Pakistan, plunged their Koh-i-noor T20 tournaments — IPL 2025 & PSL 2025 — into chaos. Foreign players left hastily from airstrips that were targeted in Pakistan. In India, with northern airports shut, many cricketers were forced to take a train ride for the first time in years. Now, the hostilities are on a break only for the two T20 tournaments to conclude. Both tournaments begin on May 17. IPL will be conducted in six cities. PSL will host matches in Rawalpindi and Lahore.
IPL 2025, 57 matches into the tournament, had to be suspended on May 8. PSL 2025 was suspended after 26 matches. While PSL is not a direct comparison to IPL by any means, considering the financial muscle, it took a hit. Many foreign players are iffy about returning to India, which they call their second home. For PSL, it has been reduced to a laughing stock. Pakistan Cricket Board announced shifting the remaining matches to the UAE, only for their close friends to ditch them a day later, thanks to India’s influence.
IPL 2025 resumes
However, Pakistan Super League is not at a loss here. It is the Indian Premier League. PSL is known to be a hastily organised tournament that had to fight with other leagues. But this year, they were pitted against an immovable object named IPL. Yet, PSL has done well. But IPL, which is supposed to be the best-organised cricket tournament in the world, has lost players’ confidence.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) knew the situation and directives from the authorities that many officials are part of. Yet, BCCI chose to have the PBKS vs DC IPL match mere 85 km from the border under floodlights. Foreign players and their families were scared, to say the least.
“The boys are there. Faf didn’t even have shoes on. They’re all just waiting there, looking stressed. I asked Mitch, ‘what’s going on?’ And he said, ‘The town 60 kilometres away had just been smacked by some of the missiles’. And so there was a complete blackout in the area, which meant that’s why the lights were off because the Dharmasala stadium was like a beacon at that point in time,” Alyssa Healy, Australia women’s team captain and wife of Mitchell Starc, Delhi Capitals fast bowler, narrated her harrowing experience in a podcast after reaching Australia.
“So all of a sudden we’re crammed into vans and off we go back to the hotel. There was madness. We’re sitting on the bus with some of the Punjab players. I think Shreyas was on my bus. It was just like get in a van as soon as you can get out of there,” she narrated.
Mitchell Starc has chosen not to return. Faf du Plessis returned after multiple negotiations. Who is the loser here? The Indian board that went ahead with a floodlit match when there were all warnings of an airstrike, 85 km away from the Pakistan border. Could it not be avoided?
#TATAIPL is back in action on 17th May
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Check out the full schedule
pic.twitter.com/OoRlYEpAUb
— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) May 14, 2025
Not the first time
This was not the first time that BCCI failed to preempt a situation, spiralling out of control. In 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic forced IPL to be suspended after multiple players and support staff tested positive despite being in a bio-bubble, which was considered the safest place in India. But it was not. There were multiple lapses.
A player (Varun Chakaravarthy) was taken to a hospital for scans amid a raging pandemic. Then, in Delhi, at the Roshanara Club, club staff and club officials’ relatives were allowed to watch practice sessions. Those officials and staff also clicked selfies with Indian players when they were going to use the washrooms. Even the tracking devices players wore during IPL 2021 turned out to be faulty. And BCCI suffered a major loss of face, despite doing everything they could to have a cricket tournament during the worst wave of the pandemic.
And now, the PBKS vs DC match that had to be stopped after 10.1 overs. The IPL chairman, Arun Dhumal, had to take the field to request all the fans to leave the stadium.
PSL 2025 not even a rival
On the opposite side of the border, the Pakistan Cricket Board paused the PSL 2025 on May 9 amid escalating tensions and explosions near the Rawalpindi stadium. As it asked foreign players to stay put, PCB announced the UAE as their next destination for the remaining eight matches. But they had a major loss of face. The UAE authorities denied permission as they did not want to side with either nation in this cross-border conflict. India and the BCCI also played a role in rejecting PCB’s permission.
Within 12 hours, PCB chief Mohsin Naqvi announced a suspension of PSL 2025. But before that, Naqvi even considered conducting the remaining matches in Karachi, despite knowing that the Indian Navy was in a defensive position not so far from the Karachi port.
But they were about to have another embarrassment when Rishad Hossain, a player from Pakistan’s close ally Bangladesh, described a harrowing experience.
“Foreign players like Sam Billings, Daryl Mitchell, Kushal Perera, David Wiese, Tom Curran… all of them were so frightened… Landing in Dubai, Mitchell told me that he would never go to Pakistan again, especially in this kind of scenario. Overall, they were all horrified. Tom Curran went to the airport, but heard that the airport was closed. Then he started crying like a little child, that it took two or three people to handle him,” Rishad told Cricbuzz at Dubai airport.
As Pakistan chose to keep the airspace open and hide behind civilian aircraft to deter an Indian counter-attack, foreign players from PSL took off from the Nur Khan Airbase, which was struck by a missile just 20 minutes later.
“After landing in Dubai when we heard that a missile struck the airport 20 minutes after we took off from the airport. The news was scary as well as sorrowful,” Hossain further added.
PSL Update
PSL X is to restart on 17th May with the final scheduled for 25th May.
All matches will begin at 7.30pm local time except for the evening game on 18 May, which will begin at 8pm. The first ball in the afternoon match will be bowled at 3pm local time.#PSLX pic.twitter.com/ch3njTL37a
— T20 Franchise Rosters (Men) (@t20tracker) May 13, 2025
A happy ending?
Now the fog of war is clear and the dust has settled, India and Pakistan go back to their favourite sport: cricket. It has been a great pacifier for the last seven decades. While India and Pakistan are unlikely to face off anytime soon on a cricket field, both will look for a happy ending to their Koh-i-noor.
IPL 2025 will conclude on June 3 after extending the window and losing Australian and South African players to the WTC Final. English players will also go back, missing the playoffs. IPL chairman admitted, there were challenges in resuming the tournament.
“It certainly had logistical challenges. There was so much uncertainty when we halted the IPL. We did not know when we would get to restart. The players had gone back. BCCI has been successfully running the IPL for 17 years. We have seen off Covid times, and that helps. This was just a stumbling block. That’s the beauty of sports — you rise after every fall,” Arun Dhumal told Times of India in an interview.
PSL 2025 will come to an end on May 25, with many foreign players refusing to come back. Some of them have chosen IPL instead, maybe because they trust the Indian air defence system more than Pakistan’s.
But as the two tournaments resume, IPL won’t be broadcast in Pakistan, and PSL won’t have any broadcast in India.
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