New Delhi: India has suspended its premier domestic cricket competition, the Indian Premier League (IPL), as military tensions with Pakistan continue to escalate, according to a source with direct knowledge of the decision who spoke to the international news agency Reuters on Friday.
The suspension of the world’s richest T20 league comes as cross-border hostilities intensify following deadly clashes that erupted earlier this week between the two nuclear-armed neighbours. The source confirmed the decision was taken amid growing security concerns and the potential risk to players and fans.
Efforts to obtain an official confirmation from IPL Chairman Arun Singh Dhumal and Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) Secretary Devajit Saikia were unsuccessful, as neither responded to repeated calls or messages (at the time of the article published).
The IPL’s current season, which kicked off on March 22, had been scheduled to run until May 25 with matches hosted across 13 different venues throughout India. However, Thursday’s match in Dharamsala was abruptly halted mid-play. Although the cricket board attributed the disruption to a stadium power failure, the timing coincided with renewed cross-border shelling in border regions.
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This development follows India’s military strikes on multiple sites within Pakistan on Wednesday, which New Delhi identified as “terrorist infrastructure” connected to last month’s deadly attack on Hindu pilgrims in Indian-administered Kashmir. India has named two Pakistani nationals as suspects and directly accused Islamabad of involvement.
Pakistan, in response, denied any role in the attack and called for an independent international investigation. Since then, the situation has deteriorated, with both sides trading accusations and engaging in heavy artillery fire, drone incursions, and cross-border shelling that has caused civilian casualties and mass evacuations on both sides.
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India’s army reported that Pakistani forces had carried out “multiple attacks” using drones and other munitions across the western border from Thursday night into early Friday—an allegation strongly denied by Islamabad.
As diplomatic appeals for de-escalation continue to pour in from world powers including the United States, China, and Saudi Arabia, the sporting world now also feels the shockwaves of the crisis, with the IPL—one of India’s biggest cultural exports—becoming an unexpected casualty of the conflict.
