Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) president Nazmul Hasan has alleged that there have been continuous attempts to sabotage Bangladesh’s upcoming tour of India. He also believes that the strike called by the country’s top cricketers last week was one such attempt.
Bangladesh players called off the strike after the board agreed to meet most of their demands, including that of a better pay package at the international and first-class levels.
“You people (media) haven’t yet seen anything about the India tour. Just wait and watch. If I am saying that I had specific information that this was a conspiracy to sabotage India tour, then you should believe me,” Hasan told the country’s premier Bengali daily Prothom Aalo in an interview.
Hasan expressed how betrayed he felt when the strike was called and felt that he had made a mistake by agreeing to their demands.
“I still can’t believe it. I speak to them every day. They didn’t even intimate me before calling a strike. I feel that it was a mistake on my part to have agreed to their demands. I should have never done that,” he said.
Bangladesh Tour of India 2019
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“I should have told the players, ‘Unless you call off strike, we will not sit with you guys across the negotiation table. Speaking to various member boards, I felt that this should have been our approach but the media also created pressure on us,” Hasan added.
He was sceptical of opener Tamim Iqbal opting out of the series against India at the last minute, citing the birth of his second child as the reason despite earlier asking for permission to miss only the second Test of the series. The president expects a few more players to pull out at the last moment before the squad jets off to India on Wednesday.
“Tamim had initially told me that he will only skip the second Test (in Kolkata) for the birth of his second child. However, after the meeting with players, Tamim comes to my room and said, he wants to opt-out of the whole tour. I asked him ‘why so?’ but he simply said he won’t go,” Hasan revealed to the Bengali daily.
“Now after this, I won’t be surprised if I find that someone else pulls out at the eleventh hour when we would be left with no other options. I have called Shakib to have a chat. Now if he also pulls out, where do I even find a captain? I might have to change the whole combination. What do I even do with these players,” he said.
Bangladesh play three T20Is and two Tests in the upcoming tour of India that commences on November 3.
