Former Pakistan batter Mohammad Yousuf has added a new angle to the ongoing Bangladesh-ICC dispute, alleging that the global governing body was “influenced” in its decision to remove Bangladesh from the T20 World Cup 2026. Days after the ICC confirmed Scotland as Bangladesh’s replacement, Yousuf took to social media to question the move, and claiming that Bangladesh alone brings more viewership than 10 countries combined.
Yousuf claimed that Bangladesh alone generates a larger cricket audience than several participating nations combined. According to the figures he shared, the cumulative viewership of New Zealand, Australia, Scotland, Nepal, the Netherlands, Ireland, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan stands at 178 million, compared to Bangladesh’s 176 million. However, the numbers could not be independently verified due to the lack of publicly available data.
What did Mohammad Yousaf say?
“The combined cricket viewership of ten nations is broadly equivalent to what Bangladesh generates on its own,” Yousuf wrote, suggesting that sidelining Bangladesh raised serious questions about fairness and consistency in ICC governance.
Yousuf is not alone in his criticism. Former Pakistan players Shahid Afridi, Rashid Latif and Kamran Akmal have also questioned the ICC’s handling of the situation, while Jason Gillespie briefly echoed similar concerns before deleting his post.
The ICC has consistently maintained that the Champions Trophy arrangement and Bangladesh’s World Cup case were fundamentally different, pointing to contractual commitments, timelines and host agreements. It has also stated that the IPL incident involving Mustafizur Rahman had no bearing on World Cup security planning.
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