The Bangladesh Cricket Board is planning to provide their players some competitive longer-version matches before the forthcoming England series, said BCB officials on Saturday.
England are supposed to visit here in next October and BCB has decided to arrange some matches of the Bangladesh Cricket League, the longer-version domestic tournament, from the late August.
‘We have decided to arrange some BCL matches before the England series,’ said BCB’s Cricket Operations Committee chairman Akram Khan on Saturday.
‘Probably the BCL shall commence on August 20. If our boys can play some matches prior to the England series their confidence level will be high.’
Bangladesh have produced some great results in the one-day international during the last couple of years but their performance in the longer version game still has a yawning gap with the expectation.
Lack of matches is one of the main causes if not the main reason for Tigers’ inability to make an upheaval in Test cricket.
Bangladesh played only 93 Test matches since they got their Test status 16 years ago and it is by far the lowest number of Tests in that period for any country except Zimbabwe, who withdrew themselves from Test cricket for a while.
If England series occur it will be the first Test match for Tigers after almost a 15-month gap as they last played with red cherries back in July 2015, against South Africa at home.
Since that South Africa series, whose second and last Test match was washed out only after 88.1 over, Bangladesh did not feature in any Test match.
In the past it was seen that the scarcity of longer-version games also made Tigers shaky when they had to face the stronger opponents and often struggled after returning from a long gap.
Some crucial match practice is believed to be important against number three ranked side England, which is only one of the two teams having 100 per cent winning record against Bangladesh.
England won all eight Tests that they have played against Tigers so far and only Australia maintain that record by winning all the four matches against Bangladesh.
That is why the BCB’s effort of giving the Tigers some valuable chance to acclimatise with the longer-version is believed to be essential for the forthcoming series, though the recent situation of the country created some cloud on the fate of the series.
Australia withheld their Bangladesh tour during the October last year citing the security concern and recent terrorist attacks in the country, raising some anxiety on the England tour as well.
A terrorist attack in Gulshan killed 18 foreigners and England cricket board said that they are observing the current situation before taking any decision of the tour.
BCL matches are also expected to give Tigers some useful match practice ahead of their New Zealand tour in next January even if the England series is scrapped.
-With New Age input
