Probe report on ICC World Cup failure needs to be made public: Mahmud

Khaled Mahmud, Bangladesh's team director during the 2023 ICC World Cup, said on Wednesday that the investigation report prepared by the special committee should be made public, reports Cricbuzz.

Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) on November 29 last year formed a three-member special committee to assess the Bangladesh team's performance in the last edition of the World Cup. BCB director Enayet Hossain Siraj acted as the convener of the committee while Mahbubul Anam and Akram Khan were the other members of the committee that looked into the performance of the Bangladesh team - the first side to get knocked out of the World Cup.

Bangladesh had their worst World Cup campaign since 2003 as they could win only two out of their nine league matches and finished eighth in the 10-team tournament in India. Bangladesh previously won three matches in each of the four World Cups in 2007, 2011, 2015 and 2019.

The committee began its work on December 03 after receiving the assessment report from Bangladesh head coach Chandika Hathurusingha, skipper Shakib Al Hasan and team director Mahmud.

The trio spoke with everyone engaged with the World Cup while the investigation ended with the panel meeting Tamim Iqbal, who opted out of the World Cup citing that he is not interested to be part of dirty politics, and Shakib during the Bangladesh Premier League in Sylhet on January 29.

The committee submitted the report to the BCB during their last board meeting on February 12 but to every director's surprise, the copies of the report were not given to them, rather only to BCB president Nazmul Hasan.

It was reported in the media recently that in the report there are several accusations made against certain directors and that was the reason the assessment committee members didn't submit the report to all the board directors.

"It was in the media... BCB did not made the investigation report public and how the news... What I want to say is there is something like this BCB will certainly give the reason behind it (if they find any problem)," Mahmud told reporters when his attention was drawn to the investigation report.

"I don't know whether it (investigation report) will be made public or not. Those who investigated the matter gave it over to the president and if he feels that it needs to be made public, in that case we can understand what is the truth and what is lies.

"I feel whatever is there in the report should be made public. If it is made public if we have any problem it can be solved. If the board feels that they won't make it public and will solve the problem internally it can also happen. It is a matter dependent on BCB and Papon sir," said Mahmud.