Bangladesh hold ground on refusal to play T20 World Cup in India

Bangladesh Cricket Board has doubled down on its stance to not travel to India for the upcoming ICC Men's T20 World Cup, following a meeting involving the board, Bangladesh cricketers, and the government's sports advisor, Asif Nazrul.

The BCB president, Aminul Islam, has said that the BCB will "go back to the ICC with our plan to play in Sri Lanka".

"We will go back to the ICC with our plan to play in Sri Lanka," the BCB president was quoted as saying by ESPNCricinfo. "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."

Nazrul is hopeful that the ICC will allow Bangladesh to play their games in Sri Lanka instead of India.

"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," said Nazrul.

Shamim Hossain, Saif Hassan, Jaker Ali, Nurul Hasan, Tanzid Hasan, Najmul Hossain Shanto, and Hasan Mahmud, among other cricketers, were also present at the meeting.

Notably, the ICC has told the BCB they would be replaced by Scotland should they remain firm on their stance of not travelling to India for the marquee tournament.

The ICC dismissed BCB's plea by saying that they were linking their concern to a "single, isolated and unrelated development concerning one of its player's involvement in a domestic league. This linkage has no bearing on the tournament's security framework or the conditions governing participation in the ICC Men's T20 World Cup."

Bangladesh's schedule for the ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2026