The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) is set to take a number of decisions as they will hold a board of directors meeting today at its headquarter at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium.
The vital decision amongst all is whether Bangladesh would visit Pakistan, which is expected to come from the meeting. Apart from that a decision on pace bowling coach, a post that has been vacant since the departure of Charl Langevedlt, is also expected to come.
The BCB is set to release the list of contracted player for this season and take decision on other regular issues.
“There are many agendas but the vital agenda is to discuss about the Pakistan tour,” BCB media and communications committee chairman Jalal Younus said here on Saturday.
“Apart from that we will discuss about the list of the national contracted players. You know that the players’ contract was expired in last December.
“We have a Future Tour Programme (FTP) for 2020-Australia will tour in this country while Zimbabwe will visit our country in February. Bangladesh is scheduled to tour in Sri Lanka and Ireland. We will also discuss about the Sheikh Hasina International Cricket Stadium because a total of 25 companies showed their interest to build this stadium,” Younus said.
The BCB will also discuss about the T20 International series between the Asia XI and World XI which will be will held in Bangladesh in March to mark the birth centenary of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
“The update of the series will be informed in the meeting. We’ll discuss about the date of the series and the players who will be the part of those two teams. Pace bowling coach is not in our agenda. But we know we have some options for bowling coach including Gibson, Heyward. Hopefully a decision will be made.”
Younus admitted the large part of the meeting would be revolved around the Pakistan tour as they would look into the options available for them.
Bangladesh is scheduled to visit Pakistan in January- February to play a two-match Test series along with three-match T20 series.
However, BCB decided to play only T20 series at the moment as they want to visit Pakistan for a short time during their first visit.
In the recent past, PCB proposed BCB to play the two-match Test series first and later take part in the three-match T20 series in a convenient time, precisely ahead of the next T20 World Cup.
PCB came up with the proposal after BCB made it clear that they are not ready to stay for a longer period of time in Pakistan required to complete both T20 and Test series.
PCB is adamant to revive international cricket at their own back yard and looked to be heading in that direction after Sri Lanka visited them in the recent past to play a Test series that marked resumption of Test cricket since the terrorists attack in Lahore in 2009.
Earlier BCB president Nazmul Hassan stated that most of the players are reluctant to tour Pakistan for a longer period while added they will miss the service of most of their foreign coaches in the tour as they are not ready to go to Pakistan.
“[But most importantly] we will discuss about the options available for the Pakistan series. There are different proposal coming from there as well as going from here.
“We are planning to tour for a short period and take a decision after returning from there. We wanted to play three T20s and play the Tests later. But they are not agreeing with that. They want to play the Tests first,” he revealed.
“We have not taken any decision yet. We will discuss everything along with the Board President in the board meeting. We will inform PCB what will be the final decision taken tomorrow,” he concluded.
