Australia call off upcoming series at home against Bangladesh

Australia were scheduled to host Bangladesh later this year for a Test and ODI series, however, well ahead of the series Cricket Australia has called it off. CA cited financial difficulties as the reason for this decision. As per the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) Future Tours Program (FTP) Australia were to host two Tests and three ODIs against Bangladesh in August and September 2018.

That also is the time when the football season in the country is at its peak and the Australian broadcasters are little interested in giving this series air time. CA thus told the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) that the series would not be financially viable and gave them a couple of offers in return.

ESPNcricinfo reported that to make it up to them CA has offered to tour Bangladesh following the conclusion of the 50 overs World Cup in 2019.

BCB’s stance on the matter

Confirming the same BCB chief executive Nizamuddin Chowdhury said: “We have proposed some options and are now waiting for their response.”

Cricket Australia boss James Sutherland had earlier stated that it is up to the host nation how they want to go about it. He also mentioned that there is a difference between the others and teams like England, India and South Africa as they have to reciprocate.

“The way in which everything works in cricket is that it’s really at the home team’s discretion to work things out as to how much they want to host and what they want to host,” Sutherland had told ESPNcricinfo. “There’s obviously an element of reciprocity between what we do, we do that with England, India and South Africa.

“We commit to content in other parts of the world under the previous or current cycle, every six years you are at least committed to playing away, but we don’t have to play at home or we can vary the programme at home according to our needs and I think we just got squeezed a little bit,” Sutherland said.

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