Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Zim tour delayed
Sports Reporter
The Bangladesh cricket team will have to be content with playing minnows in the next few months after their August tour to Zimbabwe has been delayed to next year.
This was informed by Bangladesh Cricket Board director Enayet Hossain Siraj, the chairman of the cricket operations committee, after a meeting held at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur yesterday.
Bangladesh were supposed to play two Tests, three ODIs and a Twenty20 during the tour but it will now be pushed back by eight months into a late southern African summer.
"They have informed us that both their grounds are not prepared so it won't be possible in August," said Siraj, "They proposed for the tour in October but it won't be possible in because we will have domestic season at the time. So we agree to hold it in April 2013."
As was planned,
the Tigers will tour Europe to play Ireland in a four-day game, three one-dayers and two Twenty20 games. There is also consideration for matches against the Netherlands and Scotland during the tour.
The more pressing matter in hand however is the Pakistan tour, whether the Tigers will be given a schedule to train ahead of the two matches. Siraj said that they are playing in cool so far. "We have discussed the issue but we will wait for the ICC to let the board know about the progress," he said.
With less than two weeks left for the scheduled first game to be held on April 29, it is interesting to see the Tigers not training yet as its increasingly becoming a hurriedly prepared tour.
Meanwhile,
the BCB have been invited to send a team to Trinidad & Tobago for a tournament commemorating the island's Independence Day in August. The winners will get $20,000 and the organisers will bear all expenses. A BCB Eleven could be sent, it was learned.