CHENNAI: Less than 24 hours after the International Cricket Council handed them an ultimatum, Bangladesh have come out and said that they will not travel to India for the upcoming men's T20 World Cup.
The ICC had given Bangladesh Cricket Board 24 hours to discuss with their government and come back after the global governing body voted against their request to move matches to Sri Lanka.
On Thursday, after meeting with the government and the players, Bangladesh government sports adviser Asif Nazrul said, "We are hopeful that ICC will give us the opportunity to play in Sri Lanka. It is our government who has decided not to go to India."
Meanwhile, BCB president Aminul Islam said that they will go back to ICC with the plan of playing in Sri Lanka.
"They did give us a 24 hour ultimatum but a global body can't really do that. ICC will miss out on 200 million people watching the World Cup. It will be their loss ... ICC is calling Sri Lanka co-hosts. They are not co-hosts. It is a hybrid model. Some of the things I heard in the ICC meeting was shocking," Islam said during the press conference.
As things stand, if Bangladesh are removed from the tournament, they will likely be replaced by Scotland as they are the highest ranked member who did not qualify for the event.
This comes a day after ICC upheld their original T20 World Cup schedule where Bangladesh are supposed to play three games in Kolkata and one in Mumbai. However, BCB wanted their matches moved out of the country after Mustafizur Rahman was dropped from the Kolkata Knight Riders squad at the BCCI's directive. On Wednesday, the ICC board met and voted against their request.
“The ICC’s venue and scheduling decisions are guided by objective threat assessments, host guarantees, and the tournament’s agreed terms of participation, which apply uniformly to all 20 competing nations. In the absence of any independent security findings that materially compromise the safety of the Bangladesh team, the ICC is unable to relocate fixtures. Doing so would carry significant logistical and scheduling consequences for other teams and fans worldwide, and would also create far-reaching precedent-related challenges that risk undermining the neutrality, fairness, and integrity of ICC governance," ICC spokesperson had said in a statement.
