‘No scope’ of playing World Cup in India: Asif Nazrul
Youth and Sports Adviser Asif Nazrul today said as the security situation in India has not changed, there is no scope for the Bangladesh team to travel there to compete in the ICC T20 World Cup.
“There is no scope to change our decision. I believe we did not get justice from ICC. We still hope that the ICC will deliver justice," Asif Nazrul said this after a meeting with Bangladesh team cricketers and BCB officials.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. "There are many instances in the world that matches took place at a different venue owing to security risks. We have genuine security risks. We hope that the ICC will take our genuine security risk into consideration and allow us to play in Sri Lanka,”
“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.
“The country that could not provide security for one of our players, where the Indian cricket board is effectively an extended part of the government, and were unable or reluctant to provide security for one of our players under the pressure from extremists, the matches are happening in that very place. Their police, their security agencies will be entrusted to provide security for our cricketers.
“ICC made no attempts to convince us about this. Rather than speaking about the real incident, ICC discussed its standard security procedures. ICC took no real stance about our specific grievance. Even from the Indian government’s end, there was no attempts to convince us that the Mustafizur incident was an isolated incident, or we are sorry for it, we are taking these steps for your spectators, journalists and fans. No such communications were made, there was no attempt to convince us.”
The adviser did no disclose what the exact discussions with the players, "privileged communication", and made it clear that it was the government's decision to not send the team to India under security concerns.
“I want to say one thing very clearly, it was the government’s decision not to send the team for the World Cup in India considering security risks. Only the government decides whether there is any security threat about its citizens traveling to another country, there is no scope for any other considerations.”
Earlier on Wednesday, the ICC rejected Bangladesh Cricket Board’s (BCB’s) request to relocate Bangladesh’s matches from India and chose to keep the tournament’s schedule unchanged after a board meeting.
It also the BCB a one-day deadline to decide after conferring with the government whether they would travel to India for the tournament or not.
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