Published: Dec 24, 2015, 01:10 PM (IST)
Edited: Dec 24, 2015, 01:42 PM (IST)
After the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) President Nazmul Hassan announced that the Test series against Zimbabwe will be dissolved, today the cricket operations committee announced that they are in discussion to hold one Test series before three Twenty20 (T20I) matches in January 2016. The cricket operations committee chairman Naimur Rahman said that Zimbabwe Cricket (ZC) had proposed the teams play five T20s in Bangladesh after their series against Afghanistan ends on January 10. Rahman felt that neglecting Test cricket was not beneficial. Rahman told espncricinfo.com, “Every team is playing Test cricket during this time. They will also play in the World T20, so we have to play all the formats. We cannot avoid any of these formats. Test cricket is the real deal. We can improve in other formats if we do well in Tests. But if we just play T20s, we can’t improve properly.” ALSO READ: Bangladesh cricket hopes to resolve security issues with ICC
Rahman added, “We have always spoken about increasing Tests in the FTP. So there will be a negative effect on us if we don’t play Tests despite the opportunity.” The earlier schedule of the tournament included three Tests which was later cut down to two Tests in September and now there is a possibility of the entire schedule to take place out of which one Test will be held in Bangladesh and the other two will be held in Zimbabwe after the ICC World T20 2016. Rahman said, “If we play one Test here, we can play the other two there in July next year, in addition to an ODI series.” ALSO READ: BCB unhappy with proposal of tri-series between Zim, WI and Pak
Rahman further added that the venues for the series in January will be held in Khulna and Sylhet as the other venues will be busy with U-19 World Cup that begins on January 27. Naimur also said that Bangladesh will not participate in the warm-up match on March 4 as that would clash with Asia Cup. However, they will play one warm-up match on March 6. The operations committee has also jotted a plan to hold a training camp at Dharamsala to get accustomed to the weather and playing conditions ahead of ICC World T20 2016.
