Bangladesh Cricket and the International Cricket Council (ICC)’s relationship took another hit after more than a hundred journalists from the country were ICC accreditation denial for T20 World Cup 2026. The decision by the game’s governing body comes after Bangladesh was officially replaced by Scotland for the biennial tournament, following their refusal to travel to India for their group games. Bangladesh cited security reasons for wanting to play all their games in a neutral venue like Sri Lanka, however the ICC rejected the threats via their independent unit.
NDTV also interviewed Rana Abbas, the Sports Editor of Bangladesh media publication Aajker Patrika over the accreditation fiasco. Abbas called the move “extremely sad”.
“This sort of thing has never happened before in Bangladesh. Bangladeshi journalists have been reporting ICC events since before Bangladesh played in their first World Cup in 1999… Even India-Pakistan matches have been covered by Bangladeshi journalists when they were hosted in India. Never have all correspondents been turned down like this before. I can’t recall any incident like this at any ICC event,” he told NDTV.
“I would say this is extremely sad. Journalists from countries that don’t even participate in global sporting events are still usually looked after – FIFA is one example that springs to mind. I feel this whole debacle could set a really nasty precedent and may even impact journalists attending matches in Sri Lanka.”