Players reluctant to tour in Pakistan: Papon
Image : Cricfrenzy
|| CF Correspondent ||
The Bangladesh players expressed their concern over the tour in Pakistan as they parents, relatives and well-wishers don’t want them to play there over security reason, said Bangladesh Cricket Board President Nazmul Hassan Papon.
But the BCB boss said they are keen to send a team for the T20 series only if they get the green signal from the government.
Papon said after talking to the players, coaching staff and other stakeholders individually, he got the idea that the players are apprehensive about Pakistan tour.
Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) earlier said that they won’t compromise with the issue of taking the Test series to a neutral venue.
Bangladesh are 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.
Bangladesh had already let the PCB know about their decision to tour there for T20 series only while they want their Pakistan counterpart to arrange the two-match Test series in any neutral venue.
“After talking to the players and coaching staff, what I understood that there is no opportunity [to tour there for Test series]” Papon told the reporters on Thursday.
“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. It’s not the issue of board because the issue like security is involved here, so the government will say the last,” he said.
He continued: “Apart from government’s clearance, there is issue that whether coaching staffs and players will agree with the tour. We need to form a good T20 team. If we can form a good T20 team, we’ll send the team. We are supposed to get government clearance without one or two days after which we’ll give the final decision.”
Papon however has no hesitation to admit that the PCB is so sincere about the security but the thing is that he doesn’t want to take any risk at this moment and therefore he said, Bangladesh wants to tour there for T20 series only for the time being.
“There is no doubt about their security system. The feedback that we got [from the security agency] 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.”
“Secondly the over security which 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 come back 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 the 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 are going there after so long time and the players are concerned still. The coaching staff don’t want to go. 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.
