Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) president Nazmul Hasan has said that the country’s cricketers will not be pressurised by the board to travel to Pakistan for the upcoming Test and Twenty20 International (T20I) series against the Men in Green, scheduled to take place in January next year.
While speaking to reporters at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Dhaka, Nazmul emphasised that the opinion of the Bangladesh cricketers will be of paramount importance with regards to deciding the fate of the tour.
"We cannot force our players to go to Pakistan. If any player doesn't want to go, he will not go there,” said Nazmul. “We will not pressurise anyone. The board will not pressurise any player to go to Pakistan. I don't think it's time to talk about the replacement team. It will depend on the situations.”
"We want to hear who wants to go or who doesn't. There are a lot of matters including the board. After getting the clearance we will sit to discuss about these things. We hope that we can make a final decision within next four to five days," he added.
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Bangladesh Women’s and Under-16 team has already toured Pakistan earlier this year for a full series.
BCB chairman said that they are currently awaiting the security report to decide on the next course of action.
"We have applied to the government to know whether we will get the security clearance for Pakistan series,” he said. “Two of our teams visited Pakistan before. One is the women's team and other is the boy's team. We are yet to get the security clearance for the national team. But if you ask me about security, it should be the same either it is the under-12 or the national team.”
“We are assuming that we will get the security clearance. When we have it [the report] in our hand, we can inform about our decision,” he added.
Earlier this week, the chairman of BCB cricket operations Akram Khan had said that the board may forward a proposal to Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) regarding splitting the Test and T20I series between the two countries.