A Bangladesh government inquiry has named the man who kept them out of the T20 World Cup, and he says he was right

Nearly eight months after Bangladesh became the first team to miss a men’s T20 World Cup since the tournament began, a government inquiry has named the man it holds responsible. The three-member committee published its findings on Tuesday and put the decision on Asif Nazrul, the youth and sports adviser in Bangladesh’s interim government at the time.

What the committee said

The panel was set up by Bangladesh’s Ministry of Youth and Sports and chaired by Dr AKM Oli Ullah, an additional secretary in the ministry. Its other members were Barrister Faisal Dastagir and Habibul Bashar, the former Bangladesh captain who is now the country’s chief selector. A National Sports Council document dated 10 May gave them 15 working days. The report landed four months later.

Dastagir delivered the verdict at a press conference at the National Sports Council on Tuesday. “Based on what emerged from the investigation, our discussions with the relevant people, media reports and everything else, it can be said that the person responsible for not going to the World Cup was then youth and sports adviser Asif Nazrul,” he said. “The government at the time and he were responsible.”

He added a line that will sting more in Dhaka than the finding itself. “Bangladesh definitely should have gone to play in the World Cup.”

The committee also found the Bangladesh Cricket Board had backed the government’s position rather than fought it, and that the players themselves had been ready to travel to India and were left with no say.

How it started, on 3 January

The chain runs back to a single IPL squad decision. On 3 January, Mustafizur Rahman was removed from Kolkata Knight Riders’ squad for IPL 2026, reportedly at the BCCI’s instruction. Within a day, Nazrul had posted that Bangladesh should ask the ICC to move its World Cup matches out of India, with Sri Lanka as the alternative.

The ICC turned the request down. Its position was that there was no credible or verifiable security threat to the Bangladesh team. The BCB did not send the squad anyway, and in late January the ICC replaced Bangladesh with Scotland in Group C, alongside England, West Indies, Nepal and Italy. Scotland went in as the next-highest ranked T20I side.

Bangladesh had played all nine editions of the men’s T20 World Cup since 2007. The tenth, from 7 February to 8 March in India and Sri Lanka, was the first without them. India won it, beating New Zealand by 96 runs in Ahmedabad to become the first side to defend the title and the first to win it at home.

Nazrul is not backing down

He responded the same day, on Facebook, and he did not hedge. “I think we made the right decision,” he wrote, listing national dignity, the safety of players, journalists and supporters, and political stability ahead of elections as the reasons. He pointed out that he had said publicly, more than once, that the call was his. He cited an ICC report that flagged three security concerns in India, and said no Indian authority had communicated with Bangladesh about bringing the team over for the tournament.

He also gave the BCB some credit, arguing that its subsequent work had pulled Bangladesh back from the isolation the withdrawal threatened.

On that last point he has an argument. Bangladesh drew a Test series in Australia 1-1 in August, winning in Darwin by nine wickets before Mitchell Starc took ten in Mackay, and their women’s side reached the Asia Cup semi-finals this month. The cricket carried on. What the inquiry has established is that the men who play it were never asked.

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