Not too keen about Pakistan tour: BCB president

DHAKA: The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) chief Nazmul Hassan has declared that they will not discuss any tours to Pakistan upon learning the PCB had postponed their senior team’s visit to Bangladesh in July.

Hassan said there had been talks — in April — of sending the High Performance or Under-19 team to Pakistan but those plans have been put to bed with the BCB making arrangements for them to play teams from New Zealand and England.

“We haven’t spoken about going to Pakistan since we heard their decision from the media,” Hassan said.

“The national team [touring Pakistan] is out of the question. Our HP or U19 [teams] might have gone there but when they made this announcement [of postponing the Bangladesh tour] we are no longer in talks. After this, there is no question of talking about the HP tour.

“They will go elsewhere. We have confirmed programmes with New Zealand and England. We are in talks with two more countries. Within a couple of months, we will be releasing the specific schedules. Many of these series will be held at home.”

Rather than forcing the Pakistan tour in July this year, the BCB want the Bangladesh players rest so they can be ready for the home Tests against Australia in August-September, the tour of South Africa in September-October and the Bangladesh Premier League T20 tournament in November-December.

“I think we can rest our players during that time,” Hassan said. “Our boys are playing a lot these days. From Champions Trophy they’ll come home, play against Australia and then head off to South Africa. From there, they will come home and start with the BPL, and then they have more cricket.

“I am not too keen about the Pakistan tour. But if we need to play [in that time], we have four or five countries lined up to play against Bangladesh. It won’t be hard to arrange matches, but right now we are not really keen on filling that gap either.”