Controversy has flared after IPL club Kolkata Knight Riders removed Bangladeshi bowler Mustafizur Rahman under pressure from the Indian establishment, with the Bangladesh Cricket Board claiming that its players are not safe on Indian soil.
What you should know
World cricket is currently reeling from Bangladesh's threat that its team will not travel to India to play in the upcoming Twenty20 World Cup.
The Bangladesh Cricket Board has formally asked to move its matches from India to Sri Lanka.
In response, the International Cricket Council (ICC) has also said that it will not happen. If it does not come to play, it will be considered as leaving the game. The game will not be moved elsewhere.
Recently, political relations between the two neighboring countries are not good. Due to the geopolitics between them, the World Cup to be held in India and Sri Lanka is in the news for the wrong reasons. The controversy started after the Indian Premier League (IPL) team Kolkata Knight Riders removed Bangladeshi bowler Mustafizur Rahman on the orders of the Indian Cricket Board. Using that as an excuse, the Bangladesh Cricket Board had claimed that its players were no longer safe on Indian soil.
Moreover, the Bangladeshi government has already ordered that the live broadcast of the upcoming IPL will not be held in its country. In such a situation, the question now is, what will happen after Bangladesh's threat and the ICC's rejection? Bangladesh is in the group stage of the upcoming World Cup. Its rivals are England, West Indies, Nepal and Italy. Their matches will be held in Kolkata and Mumbai, India.
There have been instances of teams not only threatening not to play in official ICC tournaments, but also boycotting the games themselves. This is not the first such incident, nor will it be the last. In this context, it would be relevant to review the history of what happened when a team refused to play in an official ICC tournament before.
The first such incident occurred in 1996, when Australia and West Indies refused to go to Sri Lanka to play the One-Day World Cup. Just two weeks before the tournament began, a bomb blast occurred in the capital Colombo. At that time, Sri Lanka was in a civil war. Australia and West Indies did not go to Sri Lanka citing insecurity. In that case, they were considered to have left the game and points were deducted.
Along with Sri Lanka, Australia and West Indies also reached the quarterfinals. Later, the final was between Sri Lanka and Australia. Sri Lanka won the title match in Lahore. Almost the same thing happened in the 2003 ODI World Cup, when England refused to go to Zimbabwe and play. Similarly, New Zealand did not go to Kenya. At that time, Zimbabwe and Kenya jointly hosted the World Cup with South Africa.
This was the first World Cup to be held on African soil. At that time, British Prime Minister Tony Blair was there and his government was against Robert Mugabe, who was running the government in Zimbabwe. A few months earlier, a bomb blast had occurred in Mombasa, Kenya. Citing that as a reason, New Zealand did not go to Kenya. Both countries had requested the ICC to move their match elsewhere, but it was not accepted. The result was considered a walkover by both teams.
For this reason, England did not even make it past the group stage of that World Cup. New Zealand, on the other hand, managed to reach the Super Six. The results of these two matches benefited Kenya a lot, and eventually the team even made it to the semi-finals. Even five years later, relations between Zimbabwe and the British government were not good. In this case, Zimbabwe went to England for the 2009 Twenty20 World Cup and boycotted the entire tournament.
Even though England was confirmed to host the tournament, it was not in a position to issue visas to Zimbabwean players. This created confusion in the organization of the entire tournament. But Zimbabwe decided not to play the tournament for the good of cricket. In that situation, the associate country Scotland participated in that World Cup in place of Zimbabwe.
The 2016 U-19 World Cup was held in Bangladesh and even then Australia refused to go to Dhaka citing security reasons. In that situation, Ireland played that tournament in place of Australia. The latest incident was in the 2015 Champions Trophy, when India refused to go to Pakistan to play. At that time, Pakistan was hosting a major cricket tournament for the first time in 29 years.
But India had played in Pakistan since 2008. When the time came to start the tournament, the BCCI had already announced that its team would not go to Pakistan and there was a political reason behind it. At that time, the ICC came up with a solution that would please both parties, and according to it, if any ICC tournament is hosted by India or Pakistan, in the event that one of the teams has to play in the other country, that tournament will be held on neutral ground. Pakistan will travel to Sri Lanka to play the group stage matches of the Twenty20 World Cup, which is currently being hosted by India and Sri Lanka. If Pakistan advances beyond the group stage, it will play all its matches in Sri Lanka.
