England refuses to play practice games during Bangladesh tour

England cricket team will not play any practice in the Bangladesh tour before the ODI series that is scheduled to begin from March 1, as confirmed by Nizamuddin Chowdhury, the Bangladesh Cricket Board’s chief executive.

The Three Lions were expected to play two practice games on February 24 and 26, before the start of three-match series. All the matches will be played at Sher-e-Bangla National stadium. Following the ODIs, the visitors will travel to Chattogram for the two T20Is on March 9 and 12, respectively.

"England informed that they are planning to restrict their tour with official matches and we are planning accordingly," Nizamuddin told reporters at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium as reported by Cricbuzz.

Meanwhile, there also has been a sense of disappointment as Sylhet won’t be able to host international games, once again. Sylhet International Cricket stadium recently hosted matches in Bangladesh Premier League and got good response from the cricket fans.

Meanwhile, Shafiul Alam Chowdhury Nadel, who is representing Sylhet Division in the BCB, also expressed his feelings about the stadium not getting a chance to host International teams despite everything they have done that is required to host international matches.

Nizamuddin also came in the support of Nadel and added that they were considering the option of holding a practice game in the stadium involving England. He also observed that the stadium would host matches for Ireland tour of Bangladesh. 

"We have some plans, while touring team have some demands, and after taking everything into consideration, we select the venues. From that point, we had a plan to play practice games of England and we were planning to hold that in Sylhet. But, eventually, England team are only willing to play the official matches and so that could not be materialized,” he said.

"We are hosting Ireland in Sylhet, so this is not a fact that we are not using that venue and we want to use every venue by playing it at different times," Nizamuddin added.

The Tigers will take on Ireland after England for the Three ODIs, Three T20Is and a one-off Test. The tour will be starting from March 18.

For a better experience: Download the CricTracker app from the IOS App Store and Google Play Store