Bangladesh remain firm in their stance that they won’t play T20WorldCup matches in India after the ICC denied the request to move their matches to Sri Lanka. Bangladesh Government decided to opt out and boycott T20 World Cup 2026, due to tensions with India.
Ahead of T20 World Cup 2026, Bangladesh government decides to opt out and boycott the ICC T20 World Cup, as they had earlier requested ICC to move out their matches from Indian to Sri Lanka completely. ICC has refused the request of Bangladesh Cricket Board.
“ICC had denied us our request to shift our matches away from India. We are not sure about the status of world cricket. It’s popularity is going down. They have locked away 200 million people. Cricket is going to Olympics but if a country like us is not going there, it is ICC’s failure. We will keep fighting. There were some shocking calls in the ICC Board Meeting. We want to play the world cup. But we won’t play in India” BCB president stated.
“Let me tell you clearly. It is the government’s decision not to play in India due to security concerns,” Bangladesh’s sports adviser Asif Nazrul said on Thursday. The BCB said it would keep communicating with the ICC on the issue.
This decision, announced after a meeting in Dhaka between Nazrul, BCB president Aminul Islam and CEO Nizamuddin, and several national team players, means they risk not participating in the tournament beginning on February 7. Nurul Hasan, Shamim Hossain, Hasan Mahmud, Najmul Hossain Shanto, Jaker Ali, Tanzid Hasan and Saif Hassan were among the cricketers present. ESPNcricinfo understands the prevailing sentiment among the players was that they wanted to play the World Cup.
“The security threat is not a theory. It is a real incident,” Nazrul said, referencing Mustafizur Rahman’s removal from the IPL. “The BCCI bowed down to pressure from fundamental groups, and kicked him out of their tournament.
“The ICC tournament is being held in India where the BCCI can’t give security to one of our players. It will be the responsibility of their security agencies. How can we be convinced that they can provide security to our cricketers, fans and journalists?
“The ICC hasn’t even tried to convince us. They only talked about their standard security plan, rather than address our specific grievance. The India government didn’t even try to convince us. They didn’t call the Mustafiz incident an isolated incident. They didn’t say sorry about the Mustafiz incident, or even try to communicate with us. So there’s no scope for changing our decision. We didn’t get justice from the ICC, they are still not allowing us to play in Sri Lanka. There are many instances that the venue has been changed due to security risk. We are hopeful the ICC will take into account our genuine concern, and give us the opportunity to play in the World Cup.”
Bangladesh are currently in Group C along with England, Italy, West Indies and Nepal, and are scheduled to play their first three games in Kolkata and their last one in Mumbai. They play West Indies on February 7, the opening day of the tournament.
On Wednesday, after an ICC board meeting, the ICC had formally rejected Bangladesh’s request to play their matches in Sri Lanka instead of India on grounds of security and gave them 24 hours to speak to their government and get back.
Although no reason was stated for that directive, it came amid deteriorating relations between India and Bangladesh.
