The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) has sent a letter to Bangladesh Army Chief of Staff General Waker-Uz-Zaman, requesting security assurance to host the upcoming ICC Women’s T20 World Cup amid ongoing unrest in the country. With intense protests and a state of emergency declared by the interim government, led by Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus, there are significant concerns about hosting the tournament. The World Cup is currently scheduled to commence with warm-up games from September 27.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) recently said that they are closely monitoring the situation in Bangladesh. They were also considering alternative host options if the event needs to be relocated with India, the UAE, and Sri Lanka being potential contenders.
Iftekhar Ahmed Mithu, Chairman of the BCB’s Umpire Committee, said that the board is working to host the tournament in Bangladesh. He revealed that the board had sent an official letter to the Army Chief seeking security assurances for the ICC event. He went on to mention that the global governing body contacted them a couple of days ago and informed them that they will provide an update shortly regarding the hosting of the tournament.
“We are trying to host the tournament. To be honest there are not too many among us present in the country and on Thursday (August 8) we have sent a letter to the Army Chief regarding assurance about the security of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup as we have only two months in hand,” Mithu told Cricbuzz.
“ICC communicated with us two days back and we replied that we will come back to them shortly. Today after the [interim] government is formed, still we have to give them assurance of the security considering it cannot be given by the board or any anyone else apart from a law enforcement agency of the country and so we sent the letter today and after getting written assurance from them [the Army] we will inform the ICC,” he added.
