Bangladesh Cricket (Test) squad arrived in Pakistan on Wednesday for the second leg of the bilateral series, which includes its first Test match in the country since 2003.
Bangladesh was originally scheduled to play three Twenty20 Internationals and two Test matches, but agreed to split the tour into three phases because Bangladesh team don’t want to stay in Pakistan for a longer duration due to security concerns.
Pakistan won the T20I series 2-0 last month at Lahore, with the third game abandoned because of rain.
Leading Bangladesh player Mushfiqur Rahim, who didn’t travel to Pakistan for last month’s Twenty20 International series, also opted out of the Test match at Rawalpindi.
A three-member security delegation from Bangladesh, led by Major (Retd) Hussain Imam, met with security officials from the government and the Pakistan Cricket Board at the Pindi Cricket Stadium on Tuesday.
The first Test, which is part of the World Test Championship will be held from February 7 to February 11 at Pindi Stadium in Rawalpindi . Bangladesh team will depart for Bangladesh next Wednesday and return to Pakistan in April for a lone One Day International (ODI) cricket match at Karachi and the second Test match at the same venue.
Bangladesh Test team are the second Test team to tour Pakistan since the resumption of international cricket.
In last December, Sri Lanka visited the country for 16 days and played Test matches at Rawalpindi and Karachi.
The lone ODI will be taken place at the National Stadium in Karachi on April 3.
The second Test match will be played from April 5 to April 9 at the same venue.
It may be mentioned that the team arrived in Islamabad from Doha on Wednesday after leaving Dhaka in two phases on Tuesday. The Tigers took a bus to Rawalpindi from the Pakistani capital later.
Both Captain Mominul Haque and coach Russell Domingo are hopeful of a promising performance from the visitors in the series despite their limitations.
Bangladesh squad:
Mominul Haque (Captain), Tamim Iqbal, Saif Hassan, Najmul Hossain Shanto, Soumya Sarkar, Mahmudullah Riyad, Mohammad Mithun, Liton Das (Keeper), Taijul Islam, Nayeem Hasan, Ebadot Hossain, Abu Jayed, Al-Amin Hossain, Rubel Hossain.
