Stars risk future if they pull out from BD tour: Caddick

Andrew Caddick has warned England’s cricketers that their standing in the team will be affected if they decide to pull out of the tour of Bangladesh.

The former Somerset fast bowler withdrew from England’s Test series in India in 2001 in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on the US, and was joined by Robert Croft.

Caddick continued to play for England until the end of 2003 World Cup, though Croft was never chosen again.

Caddick told Sportsmail: ‘The players should be told that if they don’t want to go that’s fine — it won’t affect your standing in the side.

But it will. There are certain individuals struggling to be in that side, and they’ll feel pressure to go.‘It has got to be an individual’s choice whether to go or not.’

Caddick, who is now 47, also urged the ECB – who confirmed on Thursday night that the tour would go ahead – to handle the situation with more aplomb than they did in 2001.

‘It’s got to be an individual’s choice whether to go or not,’ he said. ‘But it depends how the ECB deal with it.

‘Back then, there were initially 10 of us who didn’t want to go to India, and the ECB said fine. Then it went down to five, a couple of whom were members of staff.

‘We’d just had 9/11 and there was a lots of information from channels I was using – I was doing my own investigating and not just relying on the ECB. They said they wouldn’t name anyone, and the next day we were all named and shamed. I was on page 3 of the News of the World.

‘I just hope the ECB don’t hang them out to dry like they did with me in 2001.’

Asked whether he had any regrets about his decision to miss the three-Test series in India, which an inexperienced England side lost 1-0 under the captaincy of Nasser Hussain, Caddick replied, ‘Not at all. But it’s luck of the draw in that part of the world. There’s a lot of turmoil.’