Image courtesy of: The Daily Sun

“We are hoping that before the start of the World T20, there will be a solution to our political situation”

Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) president Nazmul Hassan has announced that he is “not worried about the World T20” after the West Indies Under-19 team cut their tour short due to an explosion near the hotel they were staying at.

Hassan stated that he was not concerned due to the fact that all the violence in the country will end once the general elections, which are scheduled to take place on January 5, get underway.

“The impact won’t be severe,” Hassan said. “The situation can’t be like this all the time. We are hoping that before the start of the World T20, there will be a solution to our political situation. If there is no solution then the games won’t work, but by January all these solutions will come. So I am not worried about the future games. I am not worried about the World T20s. I am hopeful that all the instability will be over by December.”

The West Indies Under-19 team have stayed inside the Hotel Agrabad in central Chittagong after the explosion and the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) announced that they were already making arrangements to bring the team home.

However, the BCB noted that they want to speak to the WICB about resuming the tour.

“Now whether they [West Indies] are thinking about the future, and that because the elections are coming closer there might be more danger, I don’t know,” Hassan said. “We will have a telephone conversation with them on [Monday] evening.”

Hassan added that he will call on the two main political parties to end all violence once again.

“I have always appealed to all the political parties to leave cricket aside and I have always received their support,” he said. “I might appeal again that such things don’t interfere with the cricket. There is a bit of political instability, this has always happened, but I don’t believe that we have reached a scenario where the games would be called off.”