BCB plans seven-day quarantine as West Indies due in January
Tuesday, 10 November 2020
The Bangladesh Cricket Board has presented a comprehensive Covid-19 management plan to its West Indian counterpart for approval ahead of the upcoming home series in January, taking first steps towards resumption of international cricket in the country, reports Cricbuzz.
West Indies are due to visit for two Tests and three ODIs as BCB looks to reschedule a slew of international series that have been cancelled due to the ongoing Covid-19 situation.
Bangladesh had to cancel their tour of Pakistan in March and then their white-ball tour of Ireland in May as the pandemic situation worsened around the world. That was followed by the postponement of the Sri Lanka tour. Bangladesh's two-match Test series against Australia and New Zealand respectively were also postponed.
Bangladesh were also looking to reschedule the tour of Sri Lanka in October but that went in vain as the visitors were not ready to accept the 14-day quarantine proposed by the Lankans.
"We have sent our Covid-19 management plan to the West Indies and are waiting to know if they are fine with it or have any observations regarding our proposal," BCB cricket operation chairman Akram Khan confirmed on Saturday. "
After receiving their (WICB) input, we will send it to our ministry for government approval and that would allow us to resume international cricket after a long gap... which has proved quite costly for us considering we lost the chance to play a lot of Test matches in 2020,'' he said.
BCB are desperately trying to resume cricket in the country since the postponement of Sri Lanka tour and as result introduced BCB President's Cup, three-team 50-over tournament played by cricketers from the national team, High Performance team and Under 19 set ups.
Following the success of the tournament, BCB decided to launch the Bangabandhu T20 Cup starting the third week of November and the success of the bio-bubble they create for that will go a long way in convincing international teams to travel to Bangladesh.
BCB officials are busy studying all available bio-bubble models before preparing their own 'bio-bubble plan' for the upcoming home series against the West Indies. BCB has so far evaluated bio-bubble plans of the Indian Premier League (IPL), Caribbean Premier League (CPL) and Big Bash along with plans by England and Pakistan.