Australia to keep Bangladesh tour on sidelines

Cricket Australia Chief Executive James Sutherland has suggested that they will later take a call if Australia will go ahead with their tour of Bangladesh in 2017, reports the CricketCountry.

 

Australia was scheduled to tour the Asian country in September 2015 but due to security concerns it was rescheduled for 2016. Australia even withdrew from the ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup last year and they were the only Test-playing nation not to participate in that tournament which was eventually won by the West Indies. The news about Australia might consider cancelling their Bangladesh tour once again came up after at least 20 foreigners were killed in Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital earlier this month.

 

According to sbs.com.au, Sutherland spoke to media on Wednesday regarding Australia’s tour of Bangladesh 2017. “On these sorts of things, I try not to look too far ahead. I guess there’s a lot of water to go under the bridge,” he said.

 

Sutherland noted other countries would tour Bangladesh before the Australians were due to go there. England are scheduled to tour this October. “We’re all concerned, obviously, but for us it’s not really on the horizon. We’ll wait and see. Obviously, we’ll work through our processes. There’s a whole lot of due diligence you do along the way on a regular basis, but the intensity around that gets a lot greater as you get closer,” the administrator added.

 

Australia last played Tests on the Bangladesh soils was way back in 2006. However, Australia’s latest tour of Bangladesh was in 2011 where the two sides played  3-ODIs series. It was an one-sided series and under the leadership of Michael Clarke, Australia had white-washed the hosts.