BCCI official breaks silence on Bangladesh’s demand to shift T20 World Cup matches out of India

On Friday, senior officials of BCCI reviewed the operations at the Center of Excellence (CoE) in Bengaluru. They also discussed the future organization of India U-19 and India A tours, board secretary Devajit Saikia told PTI.

After the meeting, Saikia addressed questions regarding Bangladesh’s request to the International Cricket Council (ICC) to move the T20 World Cup matches from India. This demand comes after the BCCI directed IPL franchise KKR to release Mustafizur Rahman from its team, considering the existing diplomatic relations between the two countries.

BCCI president Mithun Manhas, vice-president Rajeev Shukla and head of cricket at CoE VVS Laxman attended the meeting held in Mumbai. It is noteworthy that although the facility became fully operational in April last year, some key technical positions at the CoE are still unfilled. These vacancies include head of education and head of sports science.

“We evaluated the vacant positions at the CoE and decided to proceed with the recruitment process shortly. There is a serious shortage of technical personnel worldwide, but we are trying to fill the positions as soon as possible,” Saikia said.

Reviewing the CoE’s operations and future planning, Saikia noted: “We believed that the right moment had come to evaluate the CoE’s preparations and activities.

“We are hosting matches at three venues there (including the ongoing Vijay Hazare Trophy). We also talked about how A tours should be planned going forward.

“In some cases, the A team and the A team are touring at the same time. We need to ensure that there is no overlap. The A tour is an important supply line for cricketers,” he added.

On Thursday, the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) sent a second letter to the ICC expressing security concerns about traveling to India for the T20 World Cup. They are still pushing for the tournament to be moved to Sri Lanka. The World Cup will begin on February 7 with Bangladesh playing four matches, three in Kolkata and one in Mumbai. They are currently refusing to go to India. This all started with BCCI telling Mustafizur Rahman to quit the IPL and blaming “developments everywhere” without giving any real details.

“Following discussions with sports ministry advisor Asif Nazrul, the BCB has once again sent a communication to the ICC. The ICC wanted to know the areas of security concerns and the BCB conveyed them,” a source close to the cricket board told PTI on condition of anonymity.

No one from BCB shared what exactly happened in the last letter. This feud between BCB and ICC has been going on for a while now and ICC is not saying much in public. They continue to ask BCB for more details regarding these security concerns. So far the global cricket community has remained unmoved.

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