Scotland has officially been named as Bangladesh's replacement for the upcoming T20 World Cup 2026, the ICC announced on Friday, January 23. Bangladesh decided to pull out of the ICC event, citing security concerns and saying that their concerns weren't adequately addressed by the cricket governing body.
As per media reports, ICC told Bangladesh Cricket Board via a letter that they had been replaced by Scotland. The ICC held a meeting in Dubai on Friday, which was convened by Chairman Jay Shah to decide on the fate of Bangladesh and its participation in the tournament. In a last-ditch effort, Bangladesh had written to the ICC to refer the matter to the dispute resolution committee. However, the committee cannot act as an appeal forum and decided to go ahead with ICC's final call.
In this case, the decision was made to replace Bangladesh with Scotland had the BCB not acted upon their ultimatum to decide on their participation. The BCB decided to hold a press conference on Thursday after a meeting with the players to boycott the upcoming ICC event.
This opened the door for Scotland, who have taken part in five T20 World Cups so far. The Scottish took part in the last two editions of the tournament in 2022 and 2024, but failed to make it to the Super 8 stages despite good performances.
In the 2024 edition, they gave a scare to Australia and England before being eliminated from the tournament. Scotland were part of the European qualifiers, but they finished behind Italy, the Netherlands and Jersey.
Despite this, Scotland became the replacement choice for Bangladesh due to their ICC rankings. Scotland will now enter Group C alongside England, the West Indies, Italy and Nepal. With them replacing Bangladesh, Scotland will have their first match on February 7 against the West Indies in Kolkata.
They will face Italy on February 9 at the Eden Gardens and then England at the same venue five days later. Scotland will finish off their group stage leg against Nepal in Mumbai on February 17.
Source: India Today