Sports journalists boycotted the final of the Adommo Bangladesh T20 Cup after the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) failed to issue an apology within the deadline set by the journalists. The dispute began when a photo taken during the tournament’s opening day, showing BCB officials in the President’s Box, circulated on social media. The BCB sent a warning letter to photojournalist Tanvin Tamim for taking the picture, and later BCB vice-president Faruk Ahmed claimed the image was created using artificial intelligence.

The controversy deepened after the photo, originally published in an English daily on February 6, showed Faruk Ahmed pointing at BCB director M Nazmul Islam while another director, Khaled Mashud Pilot, stood nearby. In protest of the warning and the AI claim, sports journalists demanded an apology from the BCB and staged a demonstration before the final match at the BCB premises.

When the BCB did not apologize within the specified time, the journalists collectively boycotted coverage of the final match, marking a rare protest in Bangladesh’s sports media community.