‘We want to return to competitive cricket’
Following a three-day break, Bangladesh players returned to the second phase of their skill training camp at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium yesterday. The players underwent the coronavirus tests on Wednesday before returning to the bio-secure bubble following negative results yesterday.
The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) had started the camp with the three-Test tour of Sri Lanka in mind, but focus will shift to domestic cricket after the planned tour of the island nation was postponed due to the boards disagreeing on quarantine protocols.
"We want to return to competitive cricket soon. We want to at least start a domestic league on a minimum scale so that the players can get back to playing competitive cricket," BCB CEO Nizamuddin Chowdhury told The Daily Star yesterday.
National players involved in the camp are scheduled to play two two-day and a three-day intra-squad match, with the first two-day practice match starting at 9:30am today at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium. The Tigers will play the second two-day practice match from October 5 and the three-day practice game will begin on October 13.
"We have a few informal intra-squad matches scheduled for the players. And I think these games will give us an idea about how the players are doing," hoped Nizamuddin.
Meanwhile, with no international fixtures in the near future, premier all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan returned to his family in the United States. The all-rounder was scheduled to board a flight at 3:45am today. Shakib's ban -- imposed by the ICC -- is set to end on October 28, making him eligible to return to cricket the day after.
The resumption process in Bangladesh has been on the somewhat slower side, but Nizamuddin said that the board was slowly gaining the confidence to go ahead and bring cricket back.
"There haven't been any critical conditions in the camp with the way the BCB has been handling and managing the camp till now. This is actually giving us some sort of confidence that we can start and manage other projects. Even though the resumption process has been slow, we are now gaining the confidence to start," said Nizamuddin.
Since the start of the training camp last month, only one of the 27 members -- right-arm pacer Abu Jayed -- tested positive for the virus on September 22.
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