CHENNAI: The International Cricket Council has apparently informed its board members that since the Bangladesh Cricket Board has not confirmed their participation at the T20 World Cup, they did not have a choice but to replace them with Scotland. The ICC had multiple meetings -- in-person and virtual -- to convince Bangladesh to travel and play in India after the latter cited security concerns over the safety of its players, fans and support staff. Several boards confirmed this newspaper that such a letter has been received.
The ICC had given the BCB until Thursday to confirm but instead approached the ICC's Dispute Resolution Committee. However, according to IC rules once the decision of BCB to not play in India was dismissed in the by the board with a 14-2 majority, this cannot be referred to dispute resolution committee.
With little time left for the T20 World Cup, schedule too cannot be changed and hence the decision to replace Bangladesh with Scotland was the only viable solution. This was apparently conveyed to the ICC board through a letter. Bangladesh is also part of that board.
In that case, as reported by this newspaper on Monday, Scotland will be playing the World Cup in place of Bangladesh in Group C. The ICC has rejected Bangladesh's request to shift their matches out of India to Sri Lanka, which would lead to a lot of logistical issues so close to the World Cup starting from February 7. The BCB had said that their government does not want them to travel to India. Diplomatic relations with the neighbouring country has been strained over the last few months.
The BCB can, however, approach CAS.
With Scotland coming in, Group C will now have England, West Indies, Scotland, Nepal and Italy. The BCB may have the option of going to CAS. All this stemmed out of BCCI's decision to ask Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) to release Mustafizur Rahman from their team.