DHAKA/NEW DELHI: Bangladesh said on Thursday its cricket team will not travel to India for the upcoming T20 World Cup due to “genuine security risks”. On Wednesday, the International Cricket Council board had dismissed Bangladesh’s concerns regarding the safety of its players and fans in India, and rejected their demand that the team’s games be shifted out of India.“We’ll go back to ICC with our plan to play in Sri Lanka,” BCB president Aminul Islam said. “They gave us a 24-hour ultimatum but a global body can’t really do that. ICC will miss out on 200 million viewers (if Bangladesh is axed). It will be their loss…” BCB was responding to ICC’s deadline, after a meeting Thursday between board officials, players and the interim govt’s sports adviser. Bangladesh could be replaced by another team in the Feb 7-March 8 World Cup.
“Bangladesh is not travelling to India to play the World Cup due to security risk — this is a decision made by Bangladesh govt. No other entity has any right to take this decision,” Asif Nazrul, sports adviser in the Muhammad Yunus-led interim govt, said.Nazrul’s statement overrode Bangladesh Cricket Board’s (BCB) attempts to negotiate and directly challenged the ICC’s insistence on the original schedule.“There has been no change in the security risk situation regarding playing in India at present. This concern is not based on any abstract or hypothetical idea. Rather, the concern stems from a real incident in which the Indian cricket board (BCCI) failed to provide security to one of our top players (Mustafizur Rahman) under pressure from extremists, and he was asked to leave India,” Nazrul said.
The BCB and Nazrul, however, said Bangladesh still hopes ICC will do justice. There are many precedents in the world where matches are played at a different venue due to security risks and “we have not given up hope yet”, he said.“We are hopeful that ICC will give us the opportunity to play in Sri Lanka,” Nazrul said.Islam reiterated that ICC could have allowed the same arrangement as the one BCCI and Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) have where the two teams don’t travel to each other’s countries and play each other only at neutral venues. ICC struck down that suggestion.The ICC will only initiate a process to name a replacement team after the BCB formally communicates its decision.TOI has learnt that BCB president Aminul Islam has been making frantic calls to ICC in hope to find a middle path. The BCB will stand to lose around $500,000 in participation fees besides match fees and prize money from the tournament as per the ICC structure.
