Bangladesh’s players still don’t know for sure whether they will appear at next month’s Men’s T20 World Cup. The board has told the ICC it would prefer to base the side in Sri Lanka rather than India, citing security fears, and no final decision has followed.
Najmul Hossain Shanto – Test captain, former T20I skipper and, for now, outside the white-ball squad – believes the saga is already seeping into the dressing-room.
“We haven’t got a good result in any World Cup. We had a good opportunity last time, but we couldn’t do it,” he said on Friday. “But you will notice that before every World Cup, there’s some incident that takes place.
“As a player who has played one or two of these tournaments, I can tell you that it affects us. But we ‘act’ as if nothing affects us since we are professional cricketers. Even you know that it affects us. It is not easy. It is better if these things didn’t happen … Wherever we play the World Cup ultimately, I would think that the players have to act like nothing is bothering them, and they can do well for the team.”
The current impasse began in December when the BCCI asked Kolkata Knight Riders to withdraw their INR 9.2-crore signing, Mustafizur Rahman. Political and religious groups had warned KKR owner Shah Rukh Khan against fielding a Bangladeshi player while relations between the two governments remain strained.
Dhaka responded by suspending the IPL television feed and hinting that any national-team visit to India would be off the table. The Bangladesh Cricket Board has since proposed a split-venue World Cup, with its group games staged in Sri Lanka. The ICC, tournament broadcaster and local organisers are yet to agree.
Analysts close to the board feel a compromise is still possible. “If senior ministers give clear security guarantees, the BCB’s stance could soften,” one official said privately. The ICC generally resists late venue switches, not least because of ticketing and logistics, yet it also seeks to avoid high-profile withdrawals.
For the cricketers, the clock is ticking. Squads must be finalised within a fortnight, training camps are pencilled in for late January, and sponsors want certainty. The Test side, led by Shanto, is due in New Zealand next week; several white-ball players are already working on specific T20 skills such as death-over hitting and power-play bowling.
Former Bangladesh coach Chandika Hathurusingha offered a reminder from afar. “Noise around World Cups is normal,” he said. “Good teams park it at the gate. Bangladesh have the talent; keeping minds clear is the bigger job.”
Whether that job will be done in Chennai or Colombo remains, frustratingly, up in the air.
