Former England opener Mark Butcher backed the International Cricket Council's (ICC) decision to remove Bangladesh from the T20 World Cup 2026 after they refused to travel to India, alleging security concerns.
Butcher for Bangladesh drama
Butcher, who captained England for one Test, said that this should be the “precedent” and something which has to be followed going forward when the team does not want to travel into the host nation of the ICC tournament.
“The ICC had a choice to make at that point, do they do what actually should happen from now on in? This is a precedent that I think is worth following, that when a team, whether it’s through their government or it’s off their own bat, have security concerns or whatever concerns about visiting a country for a tournament, then basically they should be scrapped and the next cab off the rank qualifies and you go ahead without them. That I think is the precedent,” Butcher said on the Wisden podcast.
Butcher on India's decision not play in Pakistan
Butcher also took the example of India when the government didn't allow the team to travel to Pakistan for the ICC Champions Trophy, and all of the games in which the Men in Blue participated were held in Dubai.
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“There have been a lot of preceding events – not to this particular farrago – that have parallels,” said Butcher. “Obviously, the India Champions Trophy issue with Pakistan and how that ended up being resolved with India playing matches in Dubai, including the final. We’ve had tournaments, kind of re-jigged and re-arranged to accommodate one team or another throughout the history of the game of cricket, but perhaps not quite in the way that we’ve seen in recent times.
“I think the India example for the Champions Trophy, everyone could see that coming, that was so obvious that you could see it from space that that was going to be the position. I’m certainly not being naive in thinking that everyone else stands in the same position in India does because they don’t. That’s visible from space. However, the integrity of the sport should still be more important than where most of the money comes from,” Butcher further said.
Why Bangladesh refused to travel to India?
Bangladesh alleged the security concern in India for their players after the BCCI asked the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) to release Bangladesh pacer Mustafizur Rahman from their Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 squad.