Women’s T20 World Cup 2024 moved from Bangladesh to UAE amid safety concerns, BCB retains hosting rights

It’s been confirmed that the 2024 Women’s T20 World Cup has been shifted from Bangladesh to the UAE. The writing was already on the wall; the International Cricket Council (ICC) had already started looking for potential hosts for the event, and the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) had asked them for five days to reply.

The ICC board meeting was going to happen today (August 20), which was also the last day for the BCB to respond as well. The conclusion of the meeting is that Bangladesh won’t be able to host the Women’s T20 World Cup at the moment, and it’ll have to be shifted to the UAE. The good thing for BCB is that they’ll retain the hosting rights and still manage to earn a profit.

“It is a shame not to be hosting the Women’s T20 World Cup in Bangladesh as we know the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) would have staged a memorable event. I would like to thank the team at the BCB for exploring all avenues to try and enable the event to be hosted in Bangladesh, but travel advisories from the governments of a number of the participating teams meant that wasn’t feasible. However, they will retain hosting rights. We look forward to taking an ICC global event to Bangladesh in the near future.” ICC Chief Executive Geoff Allardice said in a statement.

After India’s refusal to host the ICC event, the UAE and Zimbabwe showed interest in holding the tournament. The ICC, in the end, has decided to go with the UAE. Zimbabwe has hosted a Cricket World Cup just once (2003), while the UAE held the 2021 men’s T20 World Cup after India wasn’t able to host it due to the COVID pandemic.

“I’d also like to thank the Emirates Cricket Board for stepping in to host on behalf of the BCB and Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe for their generous offers of support, and we look forward to seeing ICC global events in both of those countries in 2026,” Geoff Allardice added.