England’s winter tour to Bangladesh gets security clearance to go ahead
England’s cricketers will travel to Bangladesh this winter after their month-long Test and one-day international tour, which begins at the end of September.
This article titled “England’s winter tour to Bangladesh gets security clearance to go ahead” was written by Ali Martin, for The Guardian on Thursday 25th August 2016 21.48 UTC
England’s cricketers will travel to Bangladesh this winter after their month-long Test and one-day international tour, which begins at the end of September, was cleared to proceed by the England and Wales Cricket Board and its security director, Reg Dickason.
The decision means Eoin Morgan’s 50-over side will, as planned, fly to Bangladesh for a three-match series that begins in Dhaka on 7 October, before the Test side, under Alastair Cook, play a two-match series starting in Chittagong on 20 October. The tour to India follows, running up until Christmas.
It was the initial Bangladesh leg of the winter that had been in doubt following the 1 July terrorist attack in the Gulshan district of the capital, Dhaka, in which five gunmen killed 20 hostages – 18 of which were foreign nationals – and two policemen in a bloody siege at a restaurant regularly frequented by westerners.
An ECB security delegation, led by their longstanding security expert, Dickason, and including the Professional Cricketers’ Association chief executive, David Leatherdale, and the ECB’s director of cricket operations, John Carr, returned from a two-week visit to India and Bangladesh last weekend and has concluded it is safe for the tour to go ahead as planned.
England’s director of cricket, Andrew Strauss, along with Dickason, Leatherdale and the ECB chief executive, Tom Harrison, briefed members of the current one-day squad and Cook at the team hotel in London on Thursday evening, with a question and answer session held afterwards.
Speaking about the decision, Strauss said: “Safety and security of players and management are always paramount. We’ve received a thorough risk assessment, had excellent insight into the current situation and been fully briefed on security commitments. The ECB and PCA have the utmost confidence in the advice and support we’ve been given.
“We discussed details with the players and management in an open meeting. They asked lots of questions, have time to ask more and will clearly want to take it all in – we understand that. Selection for the tour will be made after the end of the summer internationals. We will, as always, continue to monitor the situation right up to and throughout the tour.”
Cook, who left Essex’s championship fixture in Leicestershire early to attend the meeting in London, may yet miss the early part of the Bangladesh tour, however, with his wife expecting their second child around the start of the trip.
It is understood any such withdrawal would not in itself be held against a player in terms of future selection. However vacating a spot would carry the risk of seeing a replacement make it their own and mean going into the two-month tour of India that follows immediately afterwards without match practice, given their are no warm-up fixtures currently scheduled prior to the five-match Test series that begins on 9 November.
The ECB’s stance stands in contrast to that of Cricket Australia, who postponed their senior team’s tour of Bangladesh in October last year following government advice that a “credible risk to Australians” was present in the country at the time, in a precedent that saw them go on withdraw their team from the ICC Under-19 World Cup that was held at the start of this year.
An update on supporter safety was not provided by the ECB when the decision was announced on Thursday evening, with the current Foreign Office advice reading: “There is a heightened threat of further terrorist attacks and foreigners, in particular westerners, may be directly targeted; crowded areas where westerners are known to gather may be at higher risk of attack; you should minimise your exposure to these areas.”
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