Bangladesh government has decided that the national cricket team will not participate in merqueen tournament of ICC T20 World Cup 2026 after the International Cricket Council (ICC) rejected their request on Tuesday for shifting matches outside India.
Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) on Thursday, January 22, held a meeting in Dhaka with government officials, sports adviser Asif Nazrul and cricketers to discuss the team's participation in the scheduled T20 World Cup, a day after ICC rejected BCB's request to shift matches to Sri Lanka.
Players present at the meeting were Nurul Hasan, Shamim Hossain, Hasan Mahmud, Nazmul Hossain Shanto, Jaker Ali and Saif Hassan, including BCB President Aminul Islam and chief executive Nizamuddin, according to The Times of India.
Bangladesh officials stated that they are not confident about the current situation in India and warned that the sport's global appeal is declining. They said that nearly 200 million people will be affected and excluded, calling it a serious failure of governance.
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The Bangladeshi government said that several decisions taken during the ICC meeting were "shocking" and "unfair" for the team, which further damaged trust between BCB and ICC. Officials said that they are willing to discuss this matter with ICC, but made it clear that playing in India is not an option for them.
The standoff originated on January 4, when the BCB first cited security concerns and requested its matches be moved to co-host Sri Lanka. However, an ICC Board vote on Wednesday saw 14 of the 16 members—with only Pakistan supporting Bangladesh—reject the relocation plea.
The ICC stated that independent safety assessments found "no credible or verifiable threat" to Bangladeshi players at the scheduled venues in Kolkata and Mumbai. The global body argued that shifting fixtures so close to the event would "jeopardise the sanctity" of its tournaments and undermine its neutrality as a governing body.
