ICC chairman Jay Shah has broken his silence for the first time regrading the controversies prior to the start of the T20 World Cup 2026. This concerns the events where Bangladesh pulled out of the tournament citing “security concerns”, and later replaced by Scotland. Showing solidarity with Bangladesh, Pakistan threatened to boycott their group-stage match against India and later doing an U-turn.
Shah said how the tournament attracted controversy and was jeoparadised by the actions of certain teams. But he stated that “no team is bigger than the organisation.”
“This ICC World Cup was very important because there was a lot of chatter before the start of the tournament about whether certain teams would participate and how the World Cup would go ahead. As ICC chairman, I can say that no team is bigger than the organisation and no single team makes an organisation. An organisation is a combination of all teams,” Shah said during the Indian Business Leader Awards in Mumbai, without naming Bangladesh or Pakistan.
Shah also underlined the success of the T20 World Cup 2026, which broke viewership records, with 7.2 million concurrent viewers worldwide.
“The World Cup has shattered all viewership records. For the first time in history, we recorded 7.2 million concurrent viewers. All records were broken in overall viewership. If you see, the USA gave India a hard time, the Netherlands troubled Pakistan, Zimbabwe beat Australia, and Nepal gave England a scare. I congratulate all the associate teams; they have done very well against the full members,” he added.
The ICC chief also had a special mention for the World Cup-winning Indian team led by Suryakumar Yadav.
“I have a message for Surya and Gautam Bhai: slipping from the top to the bottom takes only months, while climbing from the bottom to the top takes years. Keep working hard and keep winning awards. When I was with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), I had planned till the 2028 Olympics. Now I am in the ICC, and others are in charge at the BCCI. All of you should prepare for 2030, 2031 and even 2036,” he said.
