The Bangladesh Cricket Borad (BCB) have decided to sack director Nazmul Islam after players had decided to boycott the ongoing Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) season. According to a report by Prothom Alo, the board had decided to hold an emergency meeting on Thursday and decided to sack Nazmul after that.
It all began when players from Chattogram Royals and Nokhali Express refused to take the field for their BPL match-up on January 15. This led to the toss being delayed at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in Dhaka. The players didn't take the field as a way to protest against Nazmul, who had made explosive remarks towards them on Wednesday. He had asked them to return the “crores of crores of taka” that the BCB had spent on them.
CWAB's threat to BCB
This left many players enraged and it led to the Cricketers Welfare Association of Bangladesh (CWAB) threatening to boycott the BPL unless Nazmul resigns. According to CWAB president Mohammad Mithun, the comments had "hurt" the cricket fraternity.
The likes of Najmul Hossain Shanto and Mehidy Hasan Miraz expressed solidarity over the boycott call and this led to the fixture between Chattogram and Nokhali being delayed for quite a long time. The BCB tried to calm things down by issuing a formal statement, saying that formal disciplinary proceedings had begun against Nazmul for the remarks that he made. However, the players remained adamant on their stance and this eventually led to Nazmul's sacking.
T20 World Cup row continues
This chaos in Bangladesh cricket comes amid the standoff between BCB, BCCI and ICC over a change in venue for the Bangladesh cricket team in the 2026 T20 World Cup. The Tigers were scheduled to play all their group stage games in India, but wrote to ICC and objected the decision. They want to play their share of games in Sri Lanka, but ICC rejected their initial demand. However, this didn't stop BCB from shooting another letter towards the global cricket body, claiming that there will be massive security concerns against both the Bangladesh team and fans in India. ICC is yet to respond to the second letter.