Following widespread condemnation of religious violence against Hindus in Bangladesh, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has asked Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) to release bowler Mustafizur Rahman from their roster ahead of the Indian Premier League’s 2026 season. Devajit Saikia, the board secretary, underlined this in a public statement.
Saikia has also hinted that KKR will have the option of requesting for a replacement player instead of the Bangladeshi cricketer.
This is a one-time provision for the three-time champions, who will be unable to include Mustafizur Rahman in their 2026 campaign.
Notably, the left-arm pacer was the only Bangladeshi player sold during the IPL mini-auction.
“Due to the recent developments that are going on all across, BCCI has instructed the franchise KKR to release one of their players, Mustafizur Rahman of Bangladesh, from their squad and BCCI has also said that if they ask for any replacement, BCCI is going to allow that replacement,” Devajit Saikia was quoted as saying by India Today.
The Kolkata-based franchise now faces a headache to search for a like-for-like replacement for the experienced pacer. For the unversed, KKR had opted to bid for the 30-year-old by giving the latter a massive INR 9.20 crore signing for the upcoming season, which now will be freed, and the franchise will be signing another player if needed.
KKR Squad for IPL 2026: Rinku Singh, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Ajinkya Rahane, Manish Pandey, Rovman Powell, Sunil Narine, Ramandeep Singh, Anukul Roy, Varun Chakravarthy, Harshit Rana, Vaibhav Arora, Umran Malik, Cameron Green, Finn Allen, Matheesha Pathirana, Tejasvi Singh, Kartik Tyagi, Prashant Solanki, Daksh Kamra, Sarthak Ranjan, Mustafizur Rahman, Rahul Tripathi, Tim Seifert, Akash Deep, Rachin Ravindra
India ODI squad to be announced today
Saikia further noted that the Indian team’s squad for the upcoming three-match ODI series will be announced on Saturday afternoon.
“As you know, from the 11th of January, India is going to play New Zealand in a three-match ODI series and today we have a meeting with the selectors and in the afternoon we are going to announce the squad for the New Zealand series,” Saikia explained further.
Shubman Gill is expected to lead the side in the upcoming series, which also became a reason that the opening batter did not take the field for Punjab’s Vijay Hazare Trophy Round 5 match in Jaipur.
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