Flooding at ground leaves Australia dry ahead of the 1st Test

Australia’s only 2-day practise game was cancelled because of concerns over contaminated water following the recent flood disaster at the ground. Australian coach Darren Lehmann and captain Steven Smith visited the Khan Shaheb Osman Ali Stadium in Fatullah on Monday and inspected the conditions. After a while, they decided that it would not be fit to conduct the game under such conditions.

The visitors will have regular training sessions before the 1st Test match, starting 27th August. Lehmann earlier said that it is a shame as they won’t have enough match practice under these conditions, but at the same time supported the BCB for trying their best. Australia are aware of the fact that the upcoming series is going to be very challenging and they will have to do justice to their ‘favourites’ tag.

It’s a shame

“It’s a shame for both of the sides,” said Lehmann, whose team will enter the series with just an intra-squad trial in Australia last week as warm-up. “The BCB has been fantastic trying to get us the game. The amount of rain hasn’t helped. “We feel for the people of Bangladesh with the amount of rain they have had. There are a lot of people in this country struggling because of the rain so the thoughts are with them,” he added.

Challenging series

The Australian team is in Bangladesh after 11 years, and clearly, they would have liked to get a feel of the conditions and get a hand on the action before the 1st Test. They have to win the series to avoid a slip down the rankings and the coach realises that.

“For us we have got to get up in the ranking. It’s a challenge for us to play well and it is not going to be easy Test series and no doubt about that,” he said. “We really got some quality players and we cannot worry about rankings. We can worry about games in Dhaka and Chittagong and that is what we focus on. At the moment live on the present,” Lehmann added.