BCB still hopes to host Women's 2024 T20 World Cup, writes to Army seeking security assurance: Reports

Some Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) members are holding out hope to host the 2024 women's T20 World Cup and have written to the Army Chief of Staff General Waker-Uz-Zaman seeking security assurance amid a political shake-up in the country.

The warm-up games for the mega eight-team event are supposed to begin on September 27. However, serious doubts over Bangladesh's ability to host it arose when long-serving Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled under pressure from protestors against job-quotas.

Some BCB board members who were backed by Hasina's Awami League, including president Nazmul Hasan, also left the country in a hurry.

"We are trying to host the tournament," Iftekhar Ahmed Mithu, BCB's Umpire Committee chairman, told Cricbuzz on Thursday. "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."

After the protests and police crackdown took the lives of almost 300 people, the establishment of a new interim goverment led by Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus has provided a ray of hope.

"ICC communicated with us two days back and we replied that we will come back to them shortly. Today 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 today and after getting written assurance from them [the Army] we will inform the ICC," he added.

Apart from the World Cup, the situation has also impacted the Bangladesh men's team's preparations for the tour of Pakistan, which is slated to begin on August 21.

ICC's stance on the situation in Bangladesh

Officially, the ICC's latest statement said they were "closely monitoring" the situation and wanted to keep the players' safety as the priority. However, according to the report, the ICC will take until Saturday (August 10) to make the call and if the decision is to move the tournament out, it'll consider countries with similar time zones as Bangladesh -- UAE, India and Sri Lanka are among the candidates.