Tamim Iqbal admitted Bangladesh made a mistake by not playing the 2026 T20 World Cup |courtesy - BCB Tamim pointed out that India's actions were wrong in Mustafizur's case but claimed that that should not have meant the Tigers do not play the mega-event. For those unversed, the BCB had asked the ICC to shift their matches to Sri Lanka, a request that was rejected. As Bangladesh stayed firm on not playing in India, they were removed from the tournament, and Scotland took their place. Tamim claimed that the BCB reached a point of no return very soon and the situation should have been negotiated much better. The former Bangladesh captain also stated that he cannot make the details of the discussions public, which will leave people surprised. “I feel that we could have negotiated the thing much better. Look, Mustafizur's issue was obviously something that the whole country was disappointed with. And I say today as well, I said that day too, it should never have happened. This was in no way right thing to do, this should never have been done. At that time I endorsed this, I am saying it even now. But we are going to play a World Cup. Every single person in Bangladesh celebrated like anything when we first qualified for the World Cup. It may be that now every two years a T20 World Cup happens, or every four years it happens, but it is a World Cup Bangladesh is going to represent. Right? So, I feel we probably could have dealt with it better. We went to a point of no return right from the beginning. “I am saying this, I am in the ICC now, I am an ICC member because of BCB. There were a lot of things said and done during those negotiations, which, if I make public, you will be surprised. I won't be able to do it (revealing those incidents). I won't be able to do it because I come back to that fact, I need to maintain that respect. You will be surprised at what things were said, but let's not go into that discussion. But I said this for this reason, overall from there, when I gave my first speech about participating in the World Cup, I said one thing, that at this moment, those who are in that situation, they understand what is happening, and what is not happening. We were on the outside at that time. We can give an opinion, but those who were dealing with it at that time had all kinds of information and data. Now when I get to hear that such and such conversations took place, such things happened, after analysing everything, what I feel is that we could have dealt with this thing more carefully, more smartly,” said Tamim in an interaction on the 'Not Out Naman' Youtube Channel. “If you go to a point of no return on the very first day, then that (solution) won't happen. And I feel in some cases, sports should remain as sports. So much trouble happened recently, right? Iran went to play in America during the ongoing war between two countries, I mean, that was bigger than this, a war is going on. So that's my point, I mean, a war is going on. “My point is, whatever it is, whatever is going on, who is going to which country, in which country the match should be played, I am not going into that detail. I feel that in some cases, we should treat sports as sports. Unfortunately, we sometimes might not be staying within this line. We often drag sports with other aspects as well. So whenever this topic comes up, I say the same thing again, that we should have definitely played the World Cup. We should have definitely done the negotiation in a better way. And that's it, I cannot say many things even though I know them," the BCB chief concluded. For those unversed, Tamim took charge of the BCB earlier this year after the new government decided to dissolve the previous board of directors led by Animul Islam, which was in charge when the T20 World Cup discussion was taken. Tamil initially took charge as the interim head of the BCB in April and was formally elected as the president after elections in June. Aayush Kataria is a Senior Copy Editor at Times Network with four years of experience, having started his career in the organisation. He is a key memb... View More