The chief executive officer of Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) Nizam Uddin Chowdhury said to the media that the cricketers are happy with the resolution of their recent demonstration, and consensual on turning attention back to matters on the field.
“We will be starting our practice camp tomorrow. We expect that all the members of the coaching staff will reach Dhaka by tomorrow morning. The first practice session will take place at 3pm,” Chowdhury told the media on Thursday at Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium.
Presence of Tamim Iqbal in the practice camp is uncertain as the opener has been suffering from a rib injury which prevented him playing the second round of the National Cricket League.
A bigger blow will be that Mohammad Saifuddin will not just miss the practice camp but the India series as well. The all-rounder has been suffering from a back injury for a long time. The BCB will announce a replacement for him Saifuddin in coming days.
The other cricketers who are in the Bangladesh T20Is squad for India series, are expected to be present in the practice camp.
The schedule was also to start the practice camp from Friday, but a recent strike of the cricketers with 13-point demand had made the progress clouded. However, the cricketers agreed to revoke the boycott after Papon assured them in a meeting on Wednesday night that all of their demands are palatable to the board - at least the eleven laid down in a statement by the cricketers on Monday.
Two later additions - on promoting the women’s game and linking players’ pay to the revenue raked in by BCB each year, came too late to be included in the agenda for Wednesday’s meeting.
However, there would be opportunities for discussing those later, Papon assured. said the last two demands regarding sharing revenue and reducing gender discrimination in cricket will be discussed later.
The cricketers are said to be ‘happy’ regarding the latest developments, and certainly have no issues with commencing the camp, according to Test and T20Is captain Shakib Al Hasan, who was uncharacteristically not shy to be pushed into the forefront of the would-be movement, that the board president - also an MP dyed in the wool of the ruling party - predictably dismissed as a ‘conspiracy’ at first.
Bangladesh are slated to play a three-match T20Is series and two-match Test series in India next month. The first T20I will take place on November 3. After the T20Is series, the Tigers will lock horns with their hosts in two Test matches - the first time India have granted a touring Bangladesh side more than a solitary Test.
The first Test will be played in Indore from November 14, followed by the marquee fixture of the entire tour saved for the last, the 2nd Test at Eden Gardens in Kolkata from November 22nd.
Bangladesh T20Is squad: Shakib Al Hasan (Captain), Tamim Iqbal, Liton Das, Soumya Sarker, Naim Sheikh, Mushfiqur Rahim, Mahmudullah Riyad, Afif Hossain, Mosaddek Hossain Saikat, Aminul Islam Biplob, Arafat Sunny, Mohammad Saifuddin (will be replaced soon), Al-Amin Hossain, Mustafizur Rahman and Shafiul Islam.