Salim Reza, Dhaka: The ACA yesterday cancelled Australia A team’s tour to South Africa following their loggerheads between Cricket Australia and its players. It looks the decision may lead to Australia senior team to boycott Bangladesh tour next month.
Bangladesh Cricket Board CEO Nizamuddin Chowdhury however revealed that they are yet to get a decision on what they will do if Australia skip the upcoming Test series against Bangladesh.
“It’s too early to make comment on this issue. There is still one and half months left. Their security team is due to come to observe the situation in the last of this month. However at this stage, we are not in a position to comment more on that.” Bangladesh Cricket Board CEO Nizamuddin Chowdhury told the media.
The Australian squad is due to arrive in Bangladesh on August 18 ahead of a warm-up fixture in Fatullah stadium before Tests in Dhaka and Chittagong district. Australian players are due to meet in the Northern Territory for a training camp before their departure. Australia have only played two Test series against Bangladesh, having not played the Tigers in a Test series away since 2006. A scheduled 2015 series was cancelled because of security fears.
But BCB chief executive Nizamuddin Chowdhury said it was all systems go for the tour from their perspective. “As far as we are concerned, we have been preparing for the series, our players are starting their camp very soon,” he told Fairfax Media. “It’s a problem between Cricket Australia and the players, an internal issue. Our preparations will go on, and we expect the series to go ahead.”
The Bangladesh Cricket Board CEO Nizamuddin Chowdhury said the International Cricket Council has moved closer towards providing Test cricket with a meaningful structure and greater context by taking an initiative of introducing a new league in both formats, Bangladesh took a policy of observing the ins and outs of the scheme closely.
In hindsight, Bangladesh basically would like to get more Test matches against the top ranked team on a regular basis. If the plan goes according to Bangladesh’s wish, they would have no reservation to support the plan, initiated by the ICC CEC.
In February this year, ICC has taken a decision of a nine-team Test championship to run from 2019 and feature a final every two years and to create a 13-team league for one-day internationals that would be played over a three-year period and decide places for a World Cup staged in the fourth year. A concrete decision on this will be taken in next October.
The Bangladesh Cricket Board (CEO) Nizamuddin Chowdhury said they are not in a position to comment on the structure before the plan is put on the table in next October. But he made it clear that the BCB wants more Test matches against top ranked side regularly what they haven’t still get despite achieving the Test status in 2000.