Bangladesh canceled their training session in Delhi on Friday to safeguard their players from the air pollution in the city. They are in the city to play their ICC ODI World Cup 2023 game against Sri Lanka on Monday, November 6.
The Bangladeshi team had arrived in the Indian capital city on Wednesday and had initially scheduled three training sessions at Arun Jaitley Stadium, with the first of those between 6 pm and 9 pm on Friday.
But with the air quality index (AQI) in Delhi rising above 400, an air emergency was declared in the capital, with the government shutting down schools for two days.
"Today we had a training session but the condition got bad from yesterday so we didn't take the chance because we still have two more days for training. Many( cricketers) went out yesterday and now they are having some kind of coughing so there is a risk factor involved and so we canceled the training so that they don't get unwell," said team director Khaled Mahmud at the team hotel.
As per reports, at present there has been no conversation between the ICC and BCCI about moving the Bangladesh-Sri Lanka fixture on Monday.
"We don't know what the decision will be (whether we will have to play here or not in the present condition) and whether the weather will get better or not and if it gets better certainly it is good for us and if that is not the case (and still we have to play) we still have to adapt to it and have to train tomorrow.
We still have two more days in our hand so we want the boys to be fully fit because these two games are very important for us," said Mahmud, referring to the Champions Trophy qualification scenario.
The top seven teams in the ongoing World Cup and hosts Pakistan will get to compete in the 2025 Champions Trophy.
Bangladesh has already been eliminated from the race of semi-finals in the ongoing ICC World Cup 2023.
(PTI inputs)
