BCCI will curb the growing ‘girlfriend culture’ in Team India, the board is looking for a big solution.

Delhi: This sudden news in the middle of IPL 2026 surprised everyone that BCCI is worried about the presence of girlfriends with the players during the IPL and is thinking of implementing strict rules. There is no doubt that during IPL the atmosphere is not very strict and fun goes hand in hand. Not only are the players staying with their girlfriends in the team hotel, many times the girlfriends have also been seen traveling from the hotel to the stadium in the team bus.

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‘Girlfriend culture’ was never considered different within the teams, but something has definitely happened, that is why BCCI opened the doors of its thinking on ‘Girlfriend culture’ and started preparing to reduce its headache by implementing strict rules. According to BCCI sources, the board is trying to be cautious and avoid any possible future controversy or major mistake. It was also felt that the number of players living with their girlfriends was increasing. The BCCI was concerned about the girlfriend, not the player’s living with his wife and other family members. Why did all this happen so suddenly?

There is a very old tradition in cricket that whatever is discussed in the team meeting should not be leaked outside because it can have the opposite effect. Gautam Gambhir’s similar suspicion on Sarfaraz Khan got Sarfaraz out of the team so much so that he could not return to Team India after that. Here the matter is of two doubts:

* Players tell their girlfriends what is inside the team meeting and after that many of these things get leaked to the media/social media.
* Some girlfriends have promotions from batting groups and working contracts with other media outlets, in which ‘inside news’ received from players proves to be ‘of great use’ to them. Today the news of IPL is going out, then tomorrow the news inside Team India will also go out in the same way.

BCCI also started taking strict action. Players playing IPL are barred from traveling with the team or staying in the same hotel during the tournament. BCCI is reported to have given team information to outsiders to a player’s girlfriend. When the franchise first got this news, they got worried and informed BCCI about it and sought help. The results of what the board can do are emerging. In its action, BCCI has targeted not only the girlfriend culture but also people hanging out with team members without permission.

Social media is full of speculations as to which cricketer’s girlfriend could this be the work of? Arshdeep Singh’s Samreen or Hardik Pandya’s Mahika or someone else? Information related to the team is reported to have been leaked not once but twice. BCCI has not yet banned girlfriend culture but has started on that path. During IPL 2026, many star cricketers were seen with their girlfriends and among them are stars like Hardik Pandya, Arshdeep Singh, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Ishan Kishan.

While BCCI’s ‘Girlfriend Culture’ action is getting support, it is also being opposed. It is written on social media, in today’s time, a partner is a partner, it is a simple matter. One way is to ask the cricketer to register his girlfriend’s details in advance and apply for accreditation. In this case, there is an example of registering the names of Ritika (Rohit Sharma) and Anushka Sharma (Virat Kohli) but BCCI never took it seriously and the result of the same is now coming to light.

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The board has no problem with players dating but has a problem with living with a partner and traveling with the team. There is a growing concern about insider information about the names of social media influencers among them becoming public. Now it is also being searched in the BCCI files that when and how the IPL franchises were asked not to object to wives and ‘official girlfriends’. Woke up when these partners turned out to be influencers, promoters of betting websites and some even filed cases against IPL players.

The interesting thing is that in the entire cricket world, ‘WAGs’ is written and BCCI will have to write ‘WAF (Wife and Family)’ instead.