The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) president Nazmul Hassan Papon said the players showed their reluctance to visit Pakistan since their parents, relatives and well-wishers expressed concerns over the security, reports BSS.
Bangladesh is scheduled to tour Pakistan in January-February for a three-match T20 and two-match Test series, which is the part of World Test Championship.
“After talking to the players and coaching staffs, what I understood that there is no opportunity” Papon said here today.
“We have already let them know what we want. We told them that we want to play T20 only, I mean we trying to send our T20 team. If they agree, we can try to realize the government’s clearance.”
Papon, however, has no hesitation to admit that the PCB is very sincere about the security but the thing is that he doesn’t want to take any risk at this moment.
“There is no doubt about their security system. The feedback that we got is that the security system is good. Our Women’s team and aged level team toured there and they also gave positive feedback about security,” the BCB chief remarked.
“But our coaching staffs are completely reluctant to go. Someone said they may go for just short visit. As I said earlier, the players said that their parents, relative and friends are very concerned and requested them not to go,” he added.
“Secondly the over-security creates a suffocating environment. So how long you can stay in a suffocating environment. That’s why we told them that we may go now for T20 series and we will comeback within a week. Then we can think about the longer version format that whether we should go there. If they agree about T20 series only we will try to get the green signal from government.” The BCB president said he also wants cricket to return to Pakistan but he at the same time insisted that the PCB should consider BCB’s matter also.
“We can’t force anybody else to go there. Still we are trying to send the team. So they also should consider our matter,” he concluded.
