Bangladesh thanked Pakistan for its clear stance not to play India in the T20 World Cup as Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif expressed solidarity with Bangladesh.
In his statement, Dr. Asif Nazril, Bangladesh’s sports adviser, referred to Bangladesh Prime Minister Shehba Sharif’s speech at the cabinet meeting, where Pakistan decided to boycott the match with India as a protest against Bangladesh’s exclusion from the T20 World Cup.
The Prime Minister said yesterday that there should be no politics in sports, let’s stick with Bangladesh.
It is worth recalling that the controversy started after Bangladesh cricketer Mustafizur Rahman’s exclusion from IPL, after which the Bangladesh team refused to go to India for the T20 World Cup due to security concerns and asked the ICC to shift all their matches to Sri Lanka.
Instead of understanding and resolving the issue, the ICC involved Scotland, after which the Pakistan government decided to participate in the February 15 match against India in support of Bangladesh, which added to the ICC’s problems.
On the other hand, former English cricketer Mark Butcher said that India plays wherever it wants and other teams also have to adjust themselves but this time we have to admit that Pakistan has done a great job this time.
Mark Butcher said this was Pakistan’s only tool to put pressure on India and the ICC.
In addition, the former captain of the English team, Nasir Hussain, expressed his thoughts to Michael Atherton about the situation that occurred at the beginning of the T20 World Cup, and said that if India asks to change the place of the competition instead of Bangladesh, what will the ICC do?
The former England captain said that Pakistan did a good job by supporting Bangladesh, someone should stand up and say enough politics, now let’s play cricket.
