Bangladesh have officially confirmed that they will not travel to India to participate in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, which is set to begin on February 7. The decision follows the International Cricket Council’s rejection of the Bangladesh Cricket Board’s repeated requests to relocate the team’s scheduled group-stage matches from Indian venues to Sri Lanka, citing ongoing security apprehensions.
The final announcement came on Thursday following an important closed-door meeting at Hotel InterContinental in Dhaka. The discussions involved members of the national cricket team, BCB officials, and Youth and Sports Adviser Asif Nazrul. After the meeting, Nazrul addressed the media and made the government’s position clear.
“We are hopeful that ICC will give us the opportunity to play in Sri Lanka,” he said. “It is our government who has decided not to go to India.”
He further emphasised that there was no room to reconsider the stance, as the underlying security concerns that prompted the initial decision had not changed.
Bangladesh were originally scheduled to play four group matches in India, three at Eden Gardens in Kolkata and one at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, against West Indies, Italy, England, and Nepal. The BCB have consistently maintained that they remain fully committed to competing in the tournament but only if the matches are shifted to Sri Lanka under the hybrid-hosting model already in place for the event.
The deadlock intensified earlier this month after the BCCI instructed Kolkata Knight Riders to release Bangladeshi left-arm pacer Mustafizur Rahman from their IPL 2026 squad, citing unspecified “recent developments”. This incident significantly escalated safety fears within Bangladesh and led to the formal venue-relocation request submitted to the ICC.
On Wednesday, the ICC Board rejected Bangladesh’s security-related concerns after conducting multiple independent risk assessments, all of which concluded there was no credible threat to players, officials, broadcasters, or spectators at the designated Indian venues. The ICC then issued a 24-hour ultimatum to the BCB, requiring confirmation of participation or acceptance of replacement by the next-ranked eligible team, widely expected to be Scotland.
BCB President Aminul Islam spoke to the press shortly after Thursday’s meeting and reiterated the board’s determination to pursue an alternative arrangement.
He said: “We will go back to the ICC with our plan to play in Sri Lanka. 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.”
Islam also indicated that the BCB would continue direct engagement with the ICC in an effort to break the impasse and secure participation through Sri Lankan venues. Despite this, with the tournament now just weeks away and the ICC’s position unchanged, Bangladesh’s exclusion from the 20-team event appears highly probable unless a last-minute resolution is reached.
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