Scotland In, Bangladesh Out: ICC Finalises T20 World Cup 2026 Switch

Bangladesh will not compete in the next T20 World Cup because Scotland will be their opponent. Group C will include Italy, Nepal, the West Indies, England, and the Scots. The ICC declared on Friday, January 23, that Scotland will officially replace Bangladesh in the forthcoming T20 World Cup 2026. Bangladesh made the decision to withdraw from the ICC tournament, claiming that the cricket governing body had not sufficiently addressed its security concerns.

Chairman Jay Shah called a meeting of the ICC in Dubai on Friday to make decisions over Bangladesh's participation in the tournament. Bangladesh has written to the ICC in a desperate attempt to send the case to the dispute resolution committee. Nevertheless, the committee opted to proceed with the ICC's final decision because it was unable to serve as an appeal forum.

T20 World Cup 2026 Major Switch:

🚨 BREAKING 🚨

ICC has officially replaced Bangladesh with Scotland at the ICC men's T20 World Cup 2026

Scotland will be placed in Group C alongside Italy, Nepal, West Indies and England pic.twitter.com/Yi3qNm2TTc

— Cricbuzz (@cricbuzz) January 24, 2026

The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) insisted on refusing to host T20 World Cup matches in India. Shortly after Mustafizur Rahman was let go by the Kolkata Knight Riders due to political tensions between Bangladesh and India, they sent a letter to the International Cricket Council (ICC). Citing security concerns in their neighbouring country, they requested in the letter that their matches be taken out of India.

In this instance, it was decided to substitute Bangladesh with Scotland, whose request to decide whether or not to participate was not fulfilled by the BCB. Following a discussion with the players to boycott the forthcoming ICC event, the BCB decided to host a news conference on Thursday. Scotland, who have now participated in five T20 World Cups, was made possible by this. The Scottish participated in the tournament's final two iterations in 2022 and 2024, despite strong performances, they were unable to advance to the Super 8 stages.

Bangladesh was supposed to play its group games at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai and the Eden Gardens in Kolkata. Scotland will now get the opportunity to perform in such ancient Indian sites. Reports state that the BCB will lose INR 240 crore as a result of not participating in the 20-team tournament, which is scheduled to take place from February 7 to March 9.

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