Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) is reluctant to resume cricket in the country without a green signal from the government, reports UNB.
Right after the outbreak of the coronavirus, the board stopped all kind of cricketing activities in the country. Along with this, the board adopted work from home policy for some administrative works.
Before the lockdown, cricketers were busy playing in the Dhaka Premier League- country’s most prestigious List-A event. The league had been postponed after the sixth game on March 16. Since then, all the cricketers are passing time at home.
“We want to resume the game in Bangladesh and the cricketers are also hoping for so. But it’s not up to us. At first, we need everything to go back to normalcy. We are waiting for a green signal from the government. We have no plan to bring the cricket back to the field without the government instruction,” Nizamuddin Chowdhury, the BCB CEO, told the media recently.
Not just the domestic cricket, Bangladesh’s international schedules also were also hit hard due to the novel coronavirus. The Tigers were scheduled to tour to Pakistan at the beginning of April, but coronavirus forced this series to be rescheduled in future. Along with this, Bangladesh’s Ireland tour was also postponed indefinitely.
Bangladesh, however, is yet to confirm anything about the Sri Lanka tour which is scheduled in June-July this year. The BCB CEO said, “We have not postponed the Sri Lanka series yet. We are observing the situation in Sri Lanka. To be honest, we are not in a position to talk about the future of this series. We are currently thinking much on the series which are postponed due to the virus.”
Nizamuddin also said the board is thinking to resume Bangladesh’s cricket with the domestic events which are on halt now. At the same time, cricketers are also hoping the board will not cancel this year’s Dhaka League which is the main source of income for hundreds of cricketers who only play in domestic cricket.
Meanwhile, as per the latest update from the authority, more than 11000 people tested positive for coronavirus in Bangladesh while 186 of them died. The country was maintaining strict lockdown but recently, the government decided to ease the lockdown as it permitted shopping malls to reopen on a limited scale and offering prayers at mosques with proper precaution.