By Karunesh Kumar
Gurugram (Haryana) [India], January 21 : Former Indian cricketer Atul Wassan backed the International Cricket Council's (ICC) decision to keep Bangladesh's T20 World Cup matches in India, saying it's the right call. He also took a dig at Bangladesh, stating that cricket won't suffer if they don't participate, as they're not strong contenders to win the tournament.
Wassan believes Bangladesh is just "sulking" over Muztafizur Rahman's removal by Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) from their Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 squad in response to a directive from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) regarding atrocities committed against minorities in Bangladesh.
While speaking to ANI, Wassan said, "Well done ICC because I was expecting this, and the right decision has been made by ICC, and well done BCCI also because it's not fair for a team to just put all the teams under pressure and under inconvenience. It's (T20 World Cup) such a big tournament, and you should have thought of this before. You got miffed, and you're sulking that one of the players was taken away from IPL, and you've taken this step. So now, if they don't come as is, I don't think cricket will be diluted. You know we can have Scotland, Bangladesh is not rated to win any of the tournaments."
ICC on Wednesday confirmed the T20 World Cup 2026 will proceed as scheduled, with Bangladesh's matches to be played in India.
The decision was taken following an ICC Board meeting on Wednesday via video conference, which was convened to discuss the way forward after the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) had asked that its matches be moved out of India to Sri Lanka.
The T20 World Cup will kick off on February 7. Bangladesh are scheduled to kick off their T20 World Cup 2026 campaign on February 7 against two-time champions West Indies at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata.
The Litton Das-led side will then face Italy on February 9 at the same venue before facing England in Kolkata again. After facing England, Bangladesh are scheduled to travel to Mumbai to play Nepal at Wankhede Stadium.