Five States of an otherwise politically turbulent, strategically sensitive and socio-ethnically divided region - India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan - constitute the essence of South Asian cricket culture and economy, led by India at the international level since the 1990s. This article examines the spectre of terrorism and security as a central non-cricketing factor in the sport's evolution in contemporary South Asia. Cricket has been affected by political violence and terrorism in some of these countries since the 1980s, due in particular to the civil war in Sri Lanka, the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the growth of terrorist and jihadi camps in Pakistan. This article argues that terrorism and security fears have not only compromised, sometimes halted, the organization of the game in certain countries including Pakistan and Afghanistan but also transformed the nature of cricketing relations in the region, although cricket recovers fast from the impact of these trends.
