Mark Ramprakash surprised by Eoin Morgan's hesitation over Bangaldesh tour
England's first team batting coach Mark Ramprakash is reportedly clueless over Eoin Morgan's hesitation to travel to Bangladesh with his team. Ahead of England's tour to the Asian country, Morgan has decided to pull out of the tournament. The captain met the director of cricket, Andrew Strauss, and Loughborough to notify him of his final decision.
For quite a while now, the cricketer has stated that he has come to close to terrorism on more than one occasion and hoped to never voluntarily put himself in that situation again. In 2010, he was playing for the Mumbai Indians in the country's elite Indian Premier League when terrorists set off two bombs at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium. This happened in Bangalore in India. Once again, in 2013, the harrowing nightmare repeated itself when political turmoil escalated to a point where nearly 40 people were killed and buses set on fire, at a time when he was playing in the Bangladesh Super League.
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Ramprakash, however, questions Morgan's willingness to travel to India despite a close encounter with terrorism. Speaking to TalkSport, Ramprakash said, “England have had this security expert, Reg Dickason, with them for a number of years. He's incredibly experienced, he's been over there, and his advice is that the tour should go ahead. The ECB are happy to take that advice, Alistair Cook is, and my view is, he's the expert, so I'm due to leave on October the 8th and go out to Bangladesh.”
He further went on to question Morgan's partiality towards the option of travelling in India for the IPL and asked as to why the captain found it difficult to keep a similar open-minded attitude towards Bangladesh.
Very important to participate in a Test in Bangladesh: Ramprakash
With limited-over formats the current new trend in cricket, Test matches seem to be in fast decline especially in smaller countries. The revenue received from this format has significantly decreased over time leading to a flurry of innovative improvements by the authorities that might make the format more popular than it currently is. For this very reason, it is important that England play Test cricket in Bangladesh since the latter country epitomises the decline in question.
Ramprakash recognises this as he said, "Test cricket is just struggling a little bit with crowds and interest around the other countries. We're well supported here in England but in the other countries Test cricket is perhaps taking a back seat to one-day cricket so it's important that we try and fill these two Test matches - they're very important to Bangladesh.”
He further pointed out that it was in the best interest of the rest of the squad if a complete team was present to play in Bangladesh. “The management don't want there to be one, two, three people left at home. They have got a really nice team spirit going, they are very well led by Eoin Morgan,” he said. He also alludes to the possibility of an unwanted disruption within the players should the captain decide to sit out.
“The national side get a lot of security around them and I'm sure there will be extensive arrangements put in place,” he added with a touch of finality