Bangladesh not willing to honour tri-series invitation by India

Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) president Nazmul Hasan Papon has quashed the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI) invitation to play a triangular series with India and New Zealand in India due to its personal commitments. The series which is scheduled to be played on October 2017 failed to fit in BCB’s tight calendar.

The board has clearly specified the reasons behind their non-availability in the tri-series. Bangladesh will tour South-Africa in October and the series will conclude on October 29. India wants the series to conclude within 28th of October. Since the tour dates to South Africa have been fixed long back, Bangladesh cannot back off as they will lose a major chunk of money.

Secondly, Bangladesh’s own celebrated T20 league, Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) will kick off from the first week of November. So honouring India’s invitation of playing a tri-series will be a tough pill to swallow for BCB. On the contrary, for Bangladesh, playing a bilateral series or tri-series in India hasn’t materialised yet owing to the clash of scheduling. In 2017, they have only managed to play one Test match.

BCB boss mentions the reason

Speaking about the proposed tri-series, Papon said, “We had a proposal from India. But unfortunately we cannot fix it anyway. Our team will return from South Africa on October 30. They (India) want us to play before 28th. We have BPL after South Africa series. If we change it, then it will create problem for T20’s clash against West Indies. All these have created a problem. We are assuming that it’s not possible if they don’t change the dates.”

Letting go this bright opportunity to play a tri-series against big teams can dampen the spirits of the BCB. But the bright spot is that BCB has decided to play more games against top nations like England and India in the coming years to bolster their team’s performance.

“There are chances. Some of them are confirmed, some are not. We have received offers from few boards. We are thinking about these. But nothing is confirmed till now,” the BCB honcho added.