LAHORE : The Pakistan Cricket Board seems to be working hard to improve the strained relationship with the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) as it agreed to tour Bangladesh for a full series in December this year A source in the Board said that the PCB had recently approved a
tentative itinerary sent by the Bangladesh board for the series that
will include two Tests, three one-day internationals and a T20 match in
December.The itinerary for the series has been tentatively agreed upon by both the boards. Pakistan has not played Bangladesh in a bilateral series since early
2008 as it believed that the Bangladesh board had let it down on many
occasions, especially by not supporting Pakistan when the World Cup
matches were moved out of the country. But now things seem to have
settled down," the source said. Stating that the tension
between Pakistan and Bangladesh first surfaced in 2009, the source
explained, "Pakistan board has not been very happy with BCB since 2009
when it cancelled a bilateral one-day series between the two nations to
be held in Bangladesh, immediately after the militants attack on the Sri
Lankan team in Lahore. Pakistan team was to tour Bangladesh for the ODI series but after the
attack took place, the BCB cancelled the series on security grounds,
saying its government had not given clearance for the Pakistan team to
play in Bangladesh.The source said that the relations
further soured between the two boards when against all expectations the
Bangladesh board supported a resolution in the International cricket
Council (ICC) to move the 2011 World Cup matches out of Pakistan on
security grounds. "The PCB chief Ijaz Butt
was really upset and angry with his Bangladesh counterpart and even had
a heated exchange with him after the ICC meeting in 2009 in which the
World Cup matches were moved from Pakistan," the source revealed. He said since then the relations had remained tense and even recently
when the Bangladesh board didn't fulfill its commitment of sending its
under-19 team to Pakistan two months back, the PCB got very upset. "The PCB officials were not satisfied with the reasons given by the
Bangladesh board for not sending its team to Pakistan and asking for the
series to be postponed to next year," the source said. He
also informed that since 2010, even Bangladesh has been requesting the
PCB to send its team to Bangladesh to play an ODI series, which was
cancelled in 2009 but the PCB kept on refusing. "But now both
boards appear to have taken steps to improve their relations and the PCB
recently approved the itinerary sent for the Test series by
Bangladesh," the source said.
