The International Cricket Council (ICC) on Saturday, January 24, explained the reason why they decided to replace Bangladesh in the T20 World Cup 2026 with Scotland. Bangladesh Cricket Board had requested a change in venue from India to Sri Lanka, citing security concerns, and said that they would not send their team for the upcoming ICC event.
Following a lot of back and forth between the ICC and the BCB regarding the matter, which came to a head when the former announced that they would not make a revision to the existing schedule. This forced Bangladesh to remain with their stance and officially announced a boycott of the tournament. Their appeal to the dispute resolution committee also didn’t bear fruit as the ICC decided to replace Bangladesh in the end.
Now, in a detailed statement, the cricket governing body explained the reason behind their call.
WHY DID ICC REMOVE BANGLADESH?
The ICC said that they had conducted an extensive review to address the concerns raised by the BCB about their matches being scheduled in India. They said that over the last three weeks they engaged in multiple rounds of talks with the Bangladesh board.
ICC also said that they had conducted independent security assessments with the help of internal and external experts. The cricket governing body said that they couldn’t accept the demands from BCB at the moment after finding no credible or verifiable threat.
The ICC said that the ICC Business Corporation (IBC) had given a deadline to BCB to confirm their participation by January 21 and since they didn’t comply with it, went ahead and named Scotland as the replacement.
“The ICC’s assessments concluded that there was no credible or verifiable security threat to the Bangladesh national team, officials or supporters in India. In light of these findings, and after careful consideration of the broader implications, the ICC determined that it was not appropriate to amend the published event schedule. The ICC also noted the importance of preserving the integrity and sanctity of the tournament schedule, safeguarding the interests of all participating teams and fans, and avoiding the establishment of precedents that could undermine the neutrality and fairness of ICC events.”
“Following its meeting on Wednesday, the IBC Board requested the BCB to confirm, within a 24-hour timeframe, whether Bangladesh would participate in the tournament as scheduled. As no confirmation was received within the stipulated deadline, the ICC proceeded in line with its established governance and qualification processes to identify a replacement team,” read the statement from ICC.
“Scotland are the highest-ranked T20I side not to originally qualify for the tournament. They are currently ranked 14th, ahead of seven teams already in the tournament, Namibia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Nepal, the United States of America (USA), Canada, Oman and Italy.”
With this, Scotland enters their sixth T20 World Cup and will be part of Group C alongside England, West Indies, Italy and Nepal.
– Ends
