Zimbabwe to tour Bangladesh for 3 ODIs and 2 T20Is

Zimbabwe to tour Bangladesh for 3 ODIs and 2 T20Is: Zimbabwe will play 3 ODIs and 2 T20s in Bangladesh next month after Australia postponed a planned tour due to security concerns. All the matches will be played at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur. As per the schedule, Zimbabwe will arrive in Dhaka on November 2.

They will play a practice match at the Khan Shaheb Osman Ali Stadium in Fatullah on November 5 after which they will play three ODIs on November 7, 9 and 11. All the matches will be day-night fixtures. The two T20Is will take place on November 13 and 15.

The series has been arranged as an alternative to Australia’s 2-Test tour that was suspended over security concerns at the start of this month. The tour was cancelled amidst safety fears for foreigners in Bangladesh after an Italian and a Japanese national were killed in separate attacks in recent weeks.

The announcement of the itinerary also confirms the scrapping of the idea of a tri-series also involving the West Indies. The BCB had earlier proposed to convert the Zimbabwe series into a tri-series and wanted to know if the cricketers from the Caribbean would be interested in taking part. The West Indies’ Cricket Board however, failed to fit themselves into the schedule.

Nazmul Hasan president of the Bangladesh Cricket Board said, “We were waiting for the West Indies, but since they couldn’t provide us with a suitable date, we decided to carry on with the Zimbabwe tour. We have got the BPL starting at the end of November, so it wasn’t possible to wait any longer,”

He also said that a final decision regarding the host nation of next year’s Asia Cup would be taken on October 26 at the Asian Cricket Council meeting in Singapore. As of now, the contenders are India and Bangladesh.

After the Zimbabwe series ends on November 16, the BPL’s third edition will run from November 22 to December 15. After that Bangladesh are open to negotiating a few matches in December before the Zimbabwe Tests in January, followed by the Asia Cup in mid-February and the World T20 in March 2016.