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Bangladesh T20 World Cup Participation LIVE Updates: Bangladesh virtually boycotted the T20 World Cup 2026 on Thursday when they reiterated not playing matches in India. The International Cricket Council (ICC) had upheld the published T20 World Cup schedule on Wednesday, saying that Bangladesh’s matches will not be moved to Sri Lanka and a replacement team will be named if the situation doesn’t change.
But ICC also gave the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) one last chance to get the final permission from its government to travel to India. However, the Bangladesh government, once again, on Thursday, said that India is unsafe for them and they will not play their matches in Kolkata and Mumbai.
Bangladesh decide to boycott T20 World Cup
“There is no scope to change our decision. We are not giving up yet. Our team is ready, and we still hope that the ICC will deliver justice. We want the ICC to take our genuine security risk into consideration and allow us to play in Sri Lanka,” Bangladesh Sports Advisor Asif Nazrul said after a meeting with the players.
“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, it stems from a real incident in which the Indian cricket board failed to provide security to one of our top players [Mustafizur Rahman] under pressure from extremists, and he was asked to leave India.
“Since the Indian cricket board is effectively an extended arm of the government and could not ensure the safety of even a single player, no assurance has been given by the ICC or the Indian government that they would be able to guarantee the security of our entire team, journalists, and spectators,” he added.
“Let me tell you clearly. It is the government’s decision not to play in India due to security concerns,” he said.
BCB president Aminul Islam said the board would once again approach ICC with their request, adding that Bangladesh not being part of the T20 World Cup is a big loss for cricket.
“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 said.
ICC is expected to announce the final decision today (23 January, Friday). They will either accept Bangladesh’s demand or a new replacement team, most likely Scotland, will be announced.
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