India Declines To Host Women's T20 World Cup, UAE On ICC's Radar As Alternative

India Refuses To Host Women's T20 World Cup

The BCCI has declined to host the upcoming Women's T20 World Cup, which is at the moment scheduled to be held in Bangladesh, due to prevalent political chaos that has put the Cricketing action in jeopardy. With India's refusal to host the tournament, the ICC is looking at UAE as an alternative option as host.

The ICC currently has asked for some time, as they are looking at the venues in UAE as hosts, potentially Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The ICC is expected to give its verdict on 20th August when an online meeting with take place with the directors on a different agenda.

A Bangladesh Cricket Board member (BCB) has stated that they have requested the ICC to grant them some more time before announcing their verdict. ICC was originally scheduled to announce the verdict on August 15th itself. But requests made by Bangladesh have ensured that ICC will now declare their decision on 20th August.

India was being looked at as an alternative option to host the World Cup, but BCCI Secretary Jay Shah has categorically declined the proposal, mainly due to the weather conditions in India at the Moment.

Shah's Statement On Refusing To Host World Cup

"The ICC had asked us will we host the Women's T20 World Cup, to which I categorically said no. The reason is that in India it's a monsoon period at the moment and on top of that we are hosting the Women's ODI World Cup next year, so we don't want to send any indications that we are interested in hosting two consecutive ICC events". Shah Concluded

A statement from Jay Shah made it pretty clear that the ICC was looking for other options as a host. Currently, Bangladesh has asked ICC to extend the deadline and give them some to make up a plan that can sit well with ICC. The tournament is set to begin on September 27 with warm-up games. The main tournament is scheduled to begin from October 3 to 20 with 10 teams competing for the cup in 23 days.

Earlier the BCB stated that they are in talks with the army chief regarding the security assurances during the tournament regularly to see what can be done to keep the participants safe. Many board members of the BCB panel including its president Nazmul Hasan have fled the country when violence broke out last month.

ICC is currently working on an alternative nation that can not host the tournament but also working on a time zone that can be similar to that of Bangladesh's time zone. UAE gets a tick mark in all those things and in terms of facilities UAE has, UAE had previously hosted the Men's T20 World Cup in 2021 with India being the designated host, but the tournament had to be moved out of the country due to a widespread of the deadly COVID-19 virus.