New Delhi: After the International Cricket Council (ICC) confirmed that the Men’s T20 World Cup will proceed as scheduled, Bangladesh Youth and Sports Adviser Asif Nazrul stated that they did not get justice from the ICC and there is no scope to change their decision of not playing their matches in India.
“There is no scope to change our decision. 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,” Nazrul said after a meeting with Bangladesh team cricketers and BCB officials in Dhaka.
Bangladesh earlier informed the ICC that they would not travel to India due to security concerns amid deteriorating relations between the two nations and requested that their matches be relocated to Sri Lanka. However, the ICC reiterated Wednesday that the T20 World Cup will proceed as scheduled, with Bangladesh’s matches to be played in India.
The ICC Board noted that it was not feasible to make changes so close to the tournament and that altering the schedule under the circumstances, in the absence of any credible security threat, could set a precedent that would jeopardise the sanctity of future ICC events and undermine its neutrality as a global governing body.
“The security situation in India remains unchanged. Our security concerns did not materialise out of thin air. It stemmed from a real incident,” Nazrul added.
Following a meeting Wednesday, the ICC Board noted that it was not feasible to make changes so close to the tournament and that altering the schedule under the circumstances, in the absence of any credible security threat, could set a precedent that would jeopardise the sanctity of future ICC events and undermine its neutrality as a global governing body.
IANS
