BANGLADESH SKIPS T20 WORLD CUP AFTER REFUSING TO GO TO INDIA

Bangladesh's cricket board said on Thursday that the nation will not travel to India to participate in the T20 World Cup next month, thereby eliminating it from the competition. Aminul Islam Bulbul, president of the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB), told reporters, "Our only demand is to play the World Cup—but not in India." "There is no scope for changing our decision," stated Asif Nazrul, an adviser for youth and sports matters in Bangladesh's interim administration, following the rejection of Bangladesh's request to play its games in Sri Lanka by cricket's governing body the previous day.

Bangladesh's four group matches in the T20 World Cup will take place in the Indian cities of Kolkata and Mumbai on February 7.

When the Indian cricket board ordered the Indian Premier League (IPL) team Kolkata Knight Riders to release Bangladeshi fast bowler Mustafizur Rahman on January 3, the dispute between the two countries broke out. Following online outcry from right-wing Indian Hindus who cited purported atrocities on a fellow community in Bangladesh, a country with a majority of Muslims, Mustafizur was banned from the IPL.

According to Dhaka, the extent of the violence was overstated by the Indian media. The international governing body of the sport stated on Wednesday that it had "engaged with the BCB in sustained and constructive dialogue" to guarantee Bangladesh's participation in the competition, but that those attempts had been "rebuffed."

According to "independent security assessments, comprehensive venue-level security plans and formal assurances from the host authorities," the International Cricket Council (ICC) concluded that there was "no credible or verifiable threat to the safety" of the Bangladeshi squad.

Bangladesh's security worries, according to Nazrul, "did not arise from speculation or theoretical analysis."

"They arose from a real incident – where one of our country’s top players was forced to bow to extremists, and the Indian cricket board asked him to leave India," he stated.

As it gets ready to organise the 2030 Commonwealth Games, which are viewed as a first step towards its goal of hosting the 2036 Olympics, India has broader challenges. Bangladesh is a country that loves cricket. Bulbul of the BCB stated, "The ICC will lose a huge audience if a nation of nearly 200 million people misses the World Cup."Cricket will compete in the Olympics in 2028, Brisbane in 2032, and India in 2036. It would be a failure to leave out a significant cricket-loving nation like Bangladesh.