B’desh Cricket Board seeks army’s assurance to host women’s T20 WC

The tournament is slated to be held in two cities — Sylhet and Mirpur, with warm-up round scheduled to commence on September 27

Dhaka: The Bangladesh Cricket Board has sought security assurance from the country’s army chief for conducting the women’s T20 World Cup, scheduled to be held in October 3-20 amid political unrest in the country following ouster of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

The women’s T20 World Cup is slated to be held in two Bangladesh cities — Sylhet and Mirpur. According to Cricbuzz, the BCB has written to Bangladesh’s army chief of staff General Waker-Uz-Zaman seeking security assurance for organising the tournament.

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The warm-up round for the women’s T20 World Cup is set to begin on September 27. The ICC has been monitoring the situation after violent protests against the government led to deaths of hundreds of people and culminated with the resignation and fleeing of former PM Hasina.

It is expected that the ICC could also opt to host the tournament at a different venue within a similar time zone, which leaves India, UAE and Sri Lanka as the choices. The current BCB president Nazmul Hasan Papon has also fled the country along with a few others board directors, who were believed to be having the backing of the former PM’s party Awami League.

However, a few other directors remain in Dhaka and hope that the tournament will not be shifted from Bangladesh. BCB umpiring committee chairman Iftekhar Ahmed Mithu said, “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,” he said.

“ICC communicated with us two days back and we replied that we will come back to them shortly.” “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 and after getting written assurance from them (the Army), we will inform the ICC,” he added.