Last Updated on 9 months ago by Charbel Coorey
Bangladesh tour of SL in some doubt due to quarantine disagreements | Bangladesh tour of Sri Lanka hits roadblock.
The Covid-19 protocol is creating obstacles in Bangladesh’s World Test Championship series against Sri Lanka, that is scheduled to be held in late October. Initially, Sri Lanka Cricket has issued a notice saying that players need to quarantine for seven days after landing in the island. However, they have now increased it to 14 days and this clause is not acceptable by the BCB president Nazmul Hassan. Hassan said that it won’t be possible for the players to stay in a closed vicinity for that long.
“We cannot play World Test Championships with these terms and conditions, until their letter yesterday, both boards were having discussions along the lines of a seven-day quarantine. But now their terms and conditions are nowhere near those discussions, and neither are they anything close to what other countries hosting cricket in the pandemic are doing. There are three or seven-day quarantines in those places where the players can either train among themselves or use the gym”, said BCB president.
Sri Lanka’s sports minister Namal Rajapaksa took to Twitter to explain his stand and said, “As we all know the COVID19 pandemic is still at large globally, prevention measures are a high priority. However, given the significance of #cricket in the region, I have asked OfficialSLC to consult the Covid task force and reconsider the BCBtigers matter”, he said.
The Bangladesh players were scheduled to leave for Colombo on September 27, as the first Test is to begin on October 23. Hasan has been complaining about how SLC isn’t allowing Bangladeshi players to train in the nets until their 14-day quarantine is up, which will give Bangladesh just a week or two to fully prepare for the three-match Test series.
“Seeing that they started domestic cricket, we informed the SLC that we are coming with a big squad so that we can have our training camp there. But they will not allow us to train when our players have been inactive for seven months. They won’t even let us take net bowlers and neither are they going to provide us with any net bowlers. How can we play World Test Championship without any training? So it is not possible for us”, he said accoridng to ESPNCricinfo.
So, it now remains to be seen what comes of this, and what it means for the tour.
Written by Anjali Jha. Follow Anjali on Twitter today.
