ICC yet to respond to BCB’s letter

Bangladesh Cricket Board yesterday clarified that the International Cricket Council is yet to formally respond to its second letter seeking relocation of Bangladesh’s matches in the upcoming ICC Men’s T20 World Cup from India, following some comments from the Youth and Sports Adviser Asif Nazrul about an ICC communication earlier in the day.

“The correspondence cited today [yesterday] by the Adviser for the Ministry of Youth and Sports was in reference to an internal communication between the BCB and the ICC’s Security Department related to threat assessments for the Bangladesh team ahead of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup,” the BCB said in a press release sent in the evening.

“This does not constitute a formal response from the ICC to the BCB’s request for the relocation of Bangladesh’s matches outside India,” it further read.

Earlier in the afternoon, sports adviser Asif Nazrul spoke to the media after a visit to the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF), where he referenced a letter from the ICC security team that he said supports Bangladesh’s decision not to send its national team to India for the tournament, which begins on February 7.

“There is no new development. We have sent two letters. After sending the letters, we are waiting for the ICC’s response. There is one matter I need to inform you all. The ICC security team has sent a letter, which pointed out three factors that will escalate the security threat to the Bangladesh team,” Asif Nazrul said.

“The first is if Mustafizur [Rahman] is included in the Bangladesh team. The second is if Bangladesh supporters walk around wearing the national team’s jersey. And the third is the closer the election gets, the higher the security threat would be for the Bangladesh team.

“This statement of the ICC security team has proven beyond any doubt that the situation in India is not at all suitable for the Bangladesh cricket team to play the T20 World Cup over there. If the ICC expects us to form a team without our best bowler, our supporters won’t be able to wear the Bangladesh jersey, and that we will postpone the elections in Bangladesh for cricket, then there cannot be a more absurd, unrealistic, and unreasonable expectation than this,” he added.

The adviser then reiterated his earlier demand to the ICC to relocate Bangladesh’s matches to Sri Lanka, the co-host of the event.

“We believe that the prevailing communal situation and the anti-Bangladesh atmosphere in India, especially the continuous anti-Bangladesh campaign that has been going on for the last 16 months, have made it impossible for Bangladesh to play cricket in India.

“If the ICC is truly a global oganisation and does not blindly follow India’s directives, they should provide us the opportunity to play our T20 World Cup matches in Sri Lanka. We will not bow down from this stance.”

Prior to the BCB’s official clarification, Chief Adviser’s Deputy Press Secretary Azad Majumder on social media said that the letter cited by Asif Nazrul was actually “an inter-departmental note on threat assessments ahead of the ICC T20 World Cup in India”, not an official ICC response.

The Daily Star sent an email to ICC senior media manager Rajshekhar Rao for clarification, but did not get a response. Earlier on Thursday, the BCB had sent a second letter to the ICC outlining its security concerns about sending the Bangladesh contingent to India, as the ICC had asked it to do in response to the board’s first letter seeking relocation.