ICC monitoring situation in Bangladesh ahead of Women’s T20 World Cup

The ICC's internal security team is monitoring the unrest in Bangladesh, which has forced Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to resign and flee the country, but it will wait and watch before deciding the fate of the Women's T20 World Cup scheduled there in October.

The event is to be organised from 3 to 20 October.

For the ICC, it is a simple "wait and watch" policy for now.

"The ICC has an independent security monitoring system across all its member nations. The situation is being monitored closely but with seven weeks left for the tournament to begin, it will be too early to comment on whether the tournament will be shifted from Bangladesh," an ICC board member told PTI on conditions of anonymity.

The ICC source said a similar situation of unrest was there in Sri Lanka in March 2022 when protesters stormed former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa's official residence citing corruption and inflation.

However, the Australian cricket team had travelled there for a bilateral series in June.

The World in Bangladesh is scheduled to be held in Dhaka and Sylhet.

As of now, India's Ministry of External Affairs has "strongly advised Indian nationals against travelling to Bangladesh till further notice."

The BCCI has always gone by government advice in these kind of situations.

The ICC has contingency plans for unavoidable situations but Sri Lanka can be an option considering that the 2012 men's T20 World Cup was held there between September and October.

It will be interesting to see if the SENA countries send their women's teams to a country where the security situation could remain vulnerable.