Women’s T20 World Cup: BCB writes to army for security assurance

On August 8 (Thursday), Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB), the designated hosts of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2024 wrote to the Bangladesh Army Chief of Staff General, Waker-Uz-Zaman, seeking security guarantee for the tournament in a last attempt to keep to the hosting rights with themselves. 

This comes in the wake of the International Cricket Council (ICC) thinking about alternatives to host the premier shortest-format women’s tournament due to civil unrest in Bangladesh and the declaration of emergency by the newly formed interim government led by Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus on August 8. 

"We are trying to host the tournament," Iftekhar Ahmed Mithu, BCB's Umpire Committee chairman, was quoted as saying to Cricbuzz. 

Mithu is one of the few BCB higher executives left in the country after the deadly student protests led to Awami League’s Sheikh Hasina’s resignation as Prime Minister. Soon after her resignation, she fled the country and BCB chief Nazmul Hassan, also part of the Awami League and a Member of Parliament, followed suit. 

"To be honest there are not too many among us present in the country and on Thursday (August 8) we 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 added. 

ICC, who have been looking at alternatives in time zones similar to Bangladesh might think of India, Sri Lanka and UAE as other options. These countries have enough infrastructure to get ready and host the tournament at short notice. 

The World Cup is scheduled to get underway with the warm-up matches beginning September 27. The tournament itself will begin on October 3 with the hosts facing Scotland Women. 

Confirming that the ICC communicated with the BCB regarding the country’s situation and is likely to form a decision post-August 10 on the hosting of the tournament, Mithu said, "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. After getting written assurance from them [the Army] we will inform the ICC.”

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