Pakistan has asked fans to watch its biggest cricket tournament at home rather than attend matches as the South Asian country scrambles to conserve fuel amid spiralling oil and gas shortages triggered by the US-Israeli war against Iran.
The Pakistan Super League, which runs from 26 March to 3 May, has cut its hosting venues from six to two, with all matches now staged in Lahore and Karachi.
The Pakistan Cricket Board said an average of 30,000 spectators and support staff travelling every day for more than a month "would place significant strain on energy resources”.
The move is one of several emergency measures taken by Pakistan as fuel shortages deepen. The government has already closed schools for two weeks and raised the price of high-octane fuel by about 60 per cent, a levy expected to raise 9bn rupees a month in additional revenue.
Finance minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said the government was planning targeted steps over the coming weeks to cope with high oil prices.
The war in the Middle East has closed the Strait of Hormuz through which a quarter of seaborne oil and a fifth of global LNG shipments passed before hostilities began. Asia accounted for about 84 per cent of the crude oil and 83 per cent of the liquefied gas that passed through the strait in 2024.
So, Asia in general and South Asia in particular are hit hard by the disruption. In India, a sudden shortage of cooking gas is forcing restaurants to shutter, with panic buying spreading to several cities and long lines forming outside gas distributors.
Nearly 60 per cent of India's liquefied petroleum gas is imported and roughly 90 per cent of that passes through Hormuz. The oil ministry has ordered refineries to maximise LPG production for household consumption, raising domestic output by around 25 per cent.
In Bangladesh, the newly elected government has closed universities and placed the military in charge of oil depots amid fears of street protests.
In Sri Lanka, where petroleum accounts for a quarter of total imports, authorities have introduced fuel rationing, cut back public events, and shifted schools to a four-day week.
UN estimates indicate oil prices have risen by around 45 per cent and gas by 55 per cent since late February, with fertiliser prices up 35 per cent. Regional inflation could rise to 4.6 per cent in 2026, up from 3.5 per cent in 2025.
The UN's Asia-Pacific development arm has warned that higher inflation, weaker exports and rising debt risks are likely to follow, with growth across the region’s developing economies slowing to 4 per cent this year.
Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are among the countries most immediately at risk, according to researchers at the International Food Policy Research Institute.
In India, farmers are already anxious about fertiliser availability ahead of the June planting season.
Many Asian governments could run out of oil within the next month if the strait remains closed, according to the Council on Foreign Relations, with factories shuttering or operating part-time and tourism collapsing across the region.
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