|| CF Correspondent ||

Bangladesh’s selector Habibul Bashar said that Bangladesh's best cricketers were losing out because of the circumstances. Bangladesh's cricketers have been forced to extend their break from international cricket after their tour of Sri Lanka was postponed for a second time on Monday.

They would have played in a three-match Test series for the first time in six years in October, but now they must wait till January for the home series against West Indies, although that too is uncertain at this stage because of the Covid-19 situation.

"It is unfortunate that the players have lost a year of their career. Tamim Iqbal misses out on a thousand runs. Mushfiqur Rahim misses out on a few centuries. They are not get any younger. But there's not much we can do in a pandemic,’’ Habibul was quoted in a leading cricket website.

"[Coming back after the break] will be a big challenge for us, definitely. It is never good to stay out of international cricket for so long. We will be out for almost a year. It is not going to be easy. If we utilise our domestic cricket, we will be better prepared. We wouldn't have been too well prepared ahead of this Sri Lanka series, but it would have at least been a start."

Bangladesh have had longer gaps in Test cricket but even when they missed out for 15 months (July 2015 to October 2016) and 14 months (June 2010 to August 2011) they at least played ODIs and T20Is. In fact, their long sequence of ODI matches have often helped them find success in other formats: the run-up to the 2007 World Cup gave them their best result in the tournament till that point, and the period following the 2015 World Cup showed meaningful progress