Covid situation in Sri Lanka must have improved so they're hosting England: BCB

Nizam Uddin Chowdhury, chief executive officer of the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB), feels that the Sri Lanka Cricket's (SLC) conducts regarding  Bangladesh's tour of Sri Lanka was not unbecoming and said that it tried its best to make the tour happen.

The tour was in jeopardy for many days before it was postponed indefinitely. "The Covid-19 situation doesn't always remain the same. Their situation must have improved. Probably that's why they've planned to host England. When we wanted to tour, the SLC had quite few meetings with the government. Maybe it couldn't make the government understand what we or they wanted. I think they tried their best," said the BCB CEO.

The West Indies are scheduled to tour Bangladesh in January 2021. Since life is pretty difficult in the bio-bubble, the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) has requested the BCB to try and shorten the duration of the tour. Regarding this, Nizam Uddin Chowdhury stated, "They have requested to shorten the duration. We are discussing this and nothing has been finalised. There is an option to arrange two Tests instead of three, but the decision is yet to be made."

All the foreign coaches who are working with the national team currently have quarantined themselves on return to Bangladesh and resumed their work only after they had tested negative for Covid-19. Chowdhury hinted that the procedure will be all the same for the touring West Indies team.

The BCB doesn't have any plan yet to host matches or series other than the West Indies series but is trying to work out possible dates for the series that were postponed due to Covid-19. "We still don't have plans to arrange additional matches. Our cricket operations department is in touch with the other boards and we are trying to identify slots for the series that were called off," mentioned the BCB CEO.

The BCB is including certain new things in its medical plan ahead of the upcoming Bangabandhu T20 cup. "We are going through a crisis. The cricketing bodies are including some new plans for the series that are being held amid Covid-19. We are too doing so."

Nizam Uddin Chowdhury also mentioned that the BCB is going to deploy more manpower with a view to preventing corruption in the tournament. 

The board has deployed an armed security guard to ensure the safety of Shakib Al Hasan after the all-rounder had received a death threat. "This is obviously very alarming. These kinds of things can never be expected. We took appropriate steps immediately after we knew it. We have made the other sectors aware and they are too looking into it," Chowdhury mentioned.