'Bangladesh overplayed its hand': Former BCB secretary slams T20 World Cup pullout

Former Bangladesh Cricket Board wide caput Suyed Ashraful Haque has criticised the determination taken by the Bangladesh authorities and the BCB to propulsion retired of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, calling it an unnecessary and damaging move. Speaking to ANI connected Saturday, Haque said it was incorrect to garbage information successful a planetary tourney implicit “security concerns” that, successful his view, were linked to a Bangladeshi subordinate being dropped from an IPL side. He said Bangladesh “has overplayed its manus successful this matter” and warned that specified decisions wounded the advancement of the country’s cricket.

Haque pointed retired that the ICC replacing Bangladesh with Scotland was a mean and expected outcome.

He said that erstwhile a squad chooses not to instrumentality part, the ICC follows a modular process to bring successful a replacement. “It was not close for Bangladesh to retreat from the T20 World Cup conscionable due to the fact that a Bangladeshi subordinate was not allowed to play successful the IPL successful India,” Haque told ANI. He added that comparisons betwixt the IPL and the World Cup were misplaced. According to him, the IPL is simply a home competition, portion an ICC lawsuit comes with acold stricter and much broad information arrangements.

Haque said the determination to enactment distant from the tourney undermines the effort and hard enactment enactment into gathering Bangladeshi cricket implicit the years. “Bangladesh has overplayed its manus successful this substance by choosing not to enactment successful the ICC T20 World Cup,” helium said. On the Bangladesh government’s request to displacement the team’s matches to Sri Lanka, Haque said specified a determination was unrealistic. He stressed that ICC tournaments are planned good successful beforehand and cannot beryllium relocated astatine abbreviated notice.

“Therefore, it couldn’t beryllium transferred to Sri Lanka,” helium said. Earlier connected Saturday, the International Cricket Council confirmed that Scotland volition regenerate Bangladesh successful the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026 aft the BCB refused to enactment arsenic per the published schedule. The 20-team tourney is acceptable to beryllium played from February 7 to March 8. The ICC said the determination came aft it rejected the BCB’s petition to determination Bangladesh’s matches retired of India, citing the lack of immoderate credible oregon verifiable information menace to the Bangladesh team. Following a gathering connected Wednesday, the ICC Business Corporation Board asked the BCB to corroborate wrong 24 hours whether the squad would instrumentality portion successful the tourney arsenic scheduled. When nary confirmation was received wrong the deadline, the ICC moved up successful enactment with its governance and qualification processes to place a replacement side. In a release, the ICC said the determination followed an extended process to code the concerns raised by the BCB astir playing successful India.

“Over a play of much than 3 weeks, the ICC engaged with the BCB done aggregate rounds of dialog conducted successful a transparent and constructive manner,” the connection said, adding that discussions took spot some via video league and successful person. The ICC said it reviewed the concerns enactment guardant by the BCB, commissioned autarkic information assessments from interior and outer experts, and shared elaborate information and operational plans.

These included national and state-level arrangements, on with enhanced and escalating information protocols for the event. The assurances were reiterated astatine respective stages, including during meetings involving the IBC Board. “The ICC’s assessments concluded that determination was nary credible oregon verifiable information menace to the Bangladesh nationalist team, officials oregon supporters successful India,” the merchandise said. The governing assemblage said it decided against changing the docket aft considering the wider interaction of specified a move.

“The ICC besides noted the value of preserving the integrity and sanctity of the tourney schedule, safeguarding the interests of each participating teams and fans, and avoiding the constitution of precedents that could undermine the neutrality and fairness of ICC events,” the connection said. Scotland, who present instrumentality Bangladesh’s place, are the highest-ranked T20I broadside that did not primitively suffice for the tournament. They are presently ranked 14th successful the world, up of Namibia, the United Arab Emirates, Nepal, the United States, Canada, Oman and Italy.