Cricket is an increasingly Indian sport, but Indians are being increasingly bad sports about it. Indian players do not shake Pakistani players hands after matches anymore, or accept trophies from Pakistani officials. The Indian team will not play in or host Pakistan, so tournaments have to be organized around their petulance. The Indian Premier League has also affectively banned Bangladeshi players, causing Bangladesh to pull out of the T20 World Cup entirely.

The spoilt behavior isn't limited to Indian soil. Indian owners in the Hundred league in England and the South African league have effectively banned Pakistanis as well. Only for the players nationality, or religion really. It's honestly disgusting. It's not in the spirit of cricket at all. India has risen to the pinnacle of the sport, but they're being terrible sports about it, and it tells.

The ongoing World Cup, for example, is missing Bangladesh and Pakistan almost boycotted its game with India, before massive diplomatic intervention from all the neighbors, who just want to play cricket. The tournament is also organized really stupidly to accommodate India, both in terms of revenue, but also their racism. Cricket really brings joy to people across the subcontinent, but this behavior is really beneath the game. But it continues because the game is effectively Indian now.

It's sad because cricket becoming increasingly Indian is not necessarily a bad thing. Through the mostly Indian diaspora, the associate teams in Canada, UAE, and USA are quite good and fun to watch. More people are getting into the game, but at the same time India is actively pushing Muslim countries and Muslim players out, which is a same. Sport is supposed to be an escape from real divisions into artificial ones, but there's no escaping India when it comes to cricket. People call the International Cricket Council the Indian Cricket Council as a joke, and it's no joke.

It's also sad because this isn't the India I know. As I've said, there are many Indias, and you simply don't have this petulant prejudice in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. It's a North Indian thing, but it unfortunately infects the national team, which has now become a vehicle for this toxic nationalism. Personally, I think the Indian team should be broken up into states, it's hard to compete with 1.5 billion that focus on just one sport (India sucks at the Olympics, for example). But that's another story.

Politically, no one has been as divided and conquered as hard as India. The Modi government is attacking its own Muslim population and simping for 'Israel' while bowing and scraping to America. India resolutely refuses to join a rising Asia and instead provides the servant class for a dying White Empire. The sad (and scary) part for Muslims inside India is that the ruling BJP is already setting up concentration camps to deport them as ‘illegals’ (another prejudice copied from the colonizers) and regularly incite violence against them (see Kerala Story 1 and now 2, or don't, please). What does this have to do with anything geopolitically? Nothing, they're no the wrong side of history and hurting their own country. And this is hurting cricket also.

The Asia Cup trophy ceremony was delayed for an hour-and-a-half because the Indian captain refused to accept it from a Pakistani official. Nobody likes this Pakistani government, they put cricket legend Imran Khan (their legitimate leader) in jail where he's losing an eye due to medical neglect. But this is really above the pay grade of a cricketer, just take the thing and move on, you're not there to make political judgments at that point. But there are obviously political calculations being made higher up. Indian Prime Minister Modi said the game was a continuation of what they call Operation Sindoor and what everyone else calls an ass-whupping at the hands of Pakistan, which is neither here nor there. People were trying to play cricket for a bit and forget about it, but India shits all over that in their impotent arrogance.

World Cups, especially, are a chance for South Asian nations to get together (around hating Australia) but India is like the old racist uncle messing everything up. This year, for example, all the top seeds are put into one group basically because India doesn't want to be with Pakistan and doesn't even want to be in the same country as Pakistan. No other sport does this, normally if you do well in one round you are rewarded with an 'easier' game in the next, but the T20 World Cup was ‘pre-seeded’ to accomodate India's prejudices. They say this is for logistical reasons (half the tournament is played in Sri Lanka) but why are there logistical problems? It's simply because India won't play normally with Pakistan, so the whole tournament has to adjust. Right now the final is scheduled to be played in India, but of course they won't host Pakistan, so then it will move to Colombo on short notice. Why are we doing this? Can't we just play cricket and leave the politics to the politicians?

If you think I'm being hard on India, I am. They're the bullies in cricket in more ways than one. I wouldn't even call this a conflict, it's just one country bullying Muslims, and forcing everyone to play in the roasting heat in UAE (a Satanic state, not Muslim) where most fans can't watch. India vs. Pakistan is the biggest rivalry in cricket but it's too big and the politics makes it, frankly, ugly to watch. I find it really sad to see that the Indian players won't even shake hands, and I'm ashamed to show these displays to my children. Indians are the best cricketers in the world now, but display the worst character. Cricket is bigger than ever under the Indians, but in many ways it's not cricket at all.

For more, I recommend reading an actual cricket writer, Andrew Fidel Fernando in Al Jazeera and CricInfo.