ICC denies talking to Scotland over replacing Bangladesh; here's what's brewing in BCB's T20 World Cup stand-off drama

Cricket Scotland are yet to be contacted by the International Cricket Council (ICC) over replacing Bangladesh in the upcoming T20 world Cup 2026 in India and Sri Lanka. The development came in after, Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) refused to travel to India citing security issues.

The BCB has written a formal letter to the ICC stating they won't be travelling to India citing security reasons and requested the apex body to shift their matches to Sri Lanka. BCB's refusal to travel to India came after Mustafizur Rahman was removed from the Indian Premier League.

According to a BBC report, the “ICC have not contacted Scotland at this stage to discuss whether they would be willing to step in.” Scotland had missed on a T20 World Cup 2026 qualification after finishing fourth in the European Qualifiers, that included a loss to minnows Italy.

While Jersey finished third behind Italy and Netherlands, Scotland's T20I rankings will allow them ahead of the third-placed team if Bangladesh decide to skip the tournament. When contacted on replacing Bangladesh in the T2 World Cup 2026, Cricket Scotland said, “We aren’t commenting on this, thanks.”

Dismissing all the reports, Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) media committee chairman Amjad Hossain on Monday claimed that no such discussions took place. This was the second ICC-BCB meeting in a week.

“In regards to these talks, they haven’t mentioned a specific date or when they will let us know. They just told us that they will let us know when the next discussion will take place. Thank you,” Hossain told media as reported by The Daily Star.