BCB to assess the COVID-19 situation in the country before taking a call on players' training.
Veteran Bangladesh wicketkeeper-batsman Mushfiqur Rahim has recently requested the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) to allow him to do training at the Sher-e-Bangla Stadium in Mirpur amid the Coronavirus-enforced lockdown to fight the global COVID-19 pandemic.
Bangladesh has so far reported over 50000 Coronavirus cases while a total of 746 peoples have lost their lives in the country due to the fast-spreading COVID-19 disease so far.
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However, Bangladesh begins to ease the COVID-19 lockdown, but the BCB currently refused to give any exemption to the players owing to health safety concerns amid the global health crisis, as the board has turned down Rahim and other senior players’ request to train at the Sher-e-Bangla Stadium, citing the disinfecting process is yet to be completed at the Mirpur facility.
BCB chief executive Nizamuddin Chowdhury told Cricbuzz, “Mushfiq communicated with us, he wanted to begin personal training. But we told him that this is not yet a safe time to do so, he should train at home. Training is important, but players' safety is more important to us.”
He added, “A few other players wanted to know if they could do individual training. But our message was the same for all. We are working on disinfecting our facilities. But the job is yet to be completed.”
Amid the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, some international teams like England, West Indies, and Sri Lanka have started training, but Bangladesh isn’t in hurry regarding the same.
Nizamuddin explained, “We need to consider the overall situation. We can't rush into anything. Many countries are starting their activities following the ICC guidelines; we will definitely do the same. However, we can't give an exact date right now. We have been working to disinfect the things we need for training after Eid, and it is in the process.
After it is completed, we can say that we are ready to start cricket training again. Then we will see the overall situation in the country. After assessing the overall situation, we will call the players because, you have to understand, we can't risk the health of the players in any way because the players are a very valuable asset to the BCB. We'll just see what their plans are before making plans to resume cricket.”
Meanwhile, BCB chief physician Debashish Chowdhury said the medical team will have to plan for a bio-safety bubble for the players if the board wants to hold a residential training programme for the entire international squad.
He added, “Bio-safety bubble is what you put in an enclosed space. Keeping everyone inside a cover so that there is no communication from outside. Suppose you call a team of 15 players with five coaching staff, a total of 20 people, you check and test all of them. You isolated them by testing.”
Chowdhury signed off by saying, “When you isolate them, you will see everything from their stay, their food to their transportation. They will not come in contact with anyone (outside). We need to see the zones because there is no point making plans taking certain venues into consideration and later finding out that it falls in the red zone.”
(With Cricbuzz Inputs)