BCB remain upbeat for Australia series

(Right) BCB Nizamuddin Chowdhury

The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) are fighting tooth and nail to make sure that the Australia-Bangladesh series gets the go-ahead from Cricket Australia (CA). According to ESPNcricinfo, the chief executive of the BCB Nizamuddin Chowdhury said that the Bangladesh-Australia Test series is moving towards taking place as scheduled.

The meeting held yesterday marked the second such security-detail meetings and assurances of adequate safety measures were made. The BCB seemed very optimistic of the Australian High Commissioner’s approval as on Monday, they went ahead and named the squad for the first Test at Chittagong to start from 9th October.

The squad, however, had been selected a few days before, but the official announcement had to wait as the Australian cricket team did not board their flight to the subcontinent citing security reasons.

What could certainly be seen as a positive sign was the fact only Sean Carroll, CA’s security manager had flown back to Australia after the meetings, while Team manager Gavin Dovey and team security manager Frank Dimasi are staying on in Dhaka, presumably to receive the Australian team.

Another positive sign was that the BCB sent out the accreditation form for local journalists, implying that they were highly optimistic of the series taking place.

On Monday, the CA contingent, along with the BCB President and Directors met with Bangladesh’s Home Minister and the heads of the country’s security agencies. After the meeting, Chowdhury had to say "We are expecting all the matches to be played on schedule. We will try to have the main matches of the tour be played as scheduled because there is plenty of planning that goes behind each international match.”

The Australian High Commissioner in Bangladesh, Greg Wilcock chose his words very carefully when he said that the talks at the ministry were still ongoing and a concrete decision was yet to be taken.

"I want to make it clear that I speak on behalf of the Australian government and I want to send a very short message about this meeting," he said. "The first is I think as two cricket-loving nations we all want to play cricket. The Bangladesh squad has been doing very well recently.

"We have enjoyed the time, the generosity and the expertise of the honourable minister and his senior police officials.” he added. “This is part of our consultations with the Bangladesh Cricket Board, with the Bangladesh authorities and with Cricket Australia to address our shared interests. That work continues. This meeting has been one part of that. That work will continue for the rest of today."