Sri Lanka’s three-test tour of Bangladesh was postponed once after a clash between the BCB and the SLC over quarantine requirements, as weeks of negotiations have failed to reach an agreement between the two councils. Lankan’s fitness government had insisted that it be 14 days, the player’s motion was strictly limited to its hotel rooms, the main proposal that the Bangladesh Board of Directors refused to accept.
BCB President Nazmul Hassan said Monday that the tour had not yet been cancelled, but this war of words between the two councils forced them to ask SLC to postpone the tour, the first review of which was scheduled to begin on October 23 at Pallekele.
“Any hiker entering Sri Lanka will have to comply with this [14-day quarantine] rule,” Hassan said. “They (SLC) told us that there is nothing they can do about it (quarantine). We’ve informed you that we have to postpone the tour for a time when things get better. We can’t play the ICC checkup championship according to the Cricket Council and the Sports Department did everything they could. They accepted all our demands one, but this is the genuine one. The 14-day quarantine. “
Sri Lanka’s fitness government’s insistence for about 40 days is partly due to the fact that Covid-19 would spread to Bangladesh and that some high-level members of the potential team had also tested positive for the virus. On the other hand, it has experienced minimal spread of the virus in recent months, and life has largely returned to normal, outdoors, with strict border controls. Only thirteen Covid-19-related deaths have been officially reported in Sri Lanka.
An SLC official expressed slight frustration with the government, calling the fitness government “completely inflexible,” but also warned that the government and the SLC feared being blamed for an outbreak imaginable during the tour. Another SLC official also said that at one point the BCB asked about 40 days, which the official called “ridiculous. “
Sri Lanka Cricket had submitted several plans that they said would be more appropriate for the BCB, but all were rejected by Sri Lanka’s fitness government. The question of why Sri Lanka may not be flexible when England had been flexible during the summer at home was However, the reaction of the fitness government was that, although in the case of England, biosecurity bubbles were mainly designed to protect players from infection, with an endemic network scattered in England, Sri Lanka sought to protect the public from potential carriers arriving from Unlike Manchester and Southampton , Sri Lanka also does not have rooms with on-site hotels.
Hassan said the BCB also needed to perceive Sri Lanka’s edition of the term “quarantine” which he said differed from the idea of the Bangladesh Board. He said being confined to a room for 14 days was probably due to intellectuals and physical well-being before a three-game trial.
“There’s a difference between quarantine and isolation,” Hassan said. “If we quarantine him at home, he or she can’t leave the house. But when it is positive for Covid, we put them in isolation, which means that the user may not leave the room.
“What they call quarantine” is true total isolation, which means the user cannot leave the room. A cricketer will want plenty of time to get [physically and mentally] back to that isolation. In this situation, it will not be possible, imaginable to play, as we have already said. “
BCB CEO Nizamuddin Chowdhury also said a board of administrators had taken the decision to postpone the tour because fitness rules would allow Bangladeshi players to prepare well for the series.
“We have argued that team preparation is a priority because players have moved away from all cricket for six months because of the COVID-19 stage in the country,” Chowdhury said. “Therefore, in accordance with popular practice related to COVID-19 and quarantine For cricket groups in the countries where the game resumed, we sought to ensure that the Bangladesh team had adequate education opportunities in Sri Lanka before they started playing. We never thought of a team that wasn’t prepared in foreign cricket as a player.
The BCB met each country’s conditioning and protection needs during the pandemic and asked the SLC to take into consideration a more flexible form of quarantine for the Bangladeshi team in Sri Lanka so that they could begin the organization’s education as soon as you can imagine. in response, we perceive that the Ministry of Health of the Government of Sri Lanka was not in position at this time to deviate from its most recent “Health Directive” and that the same restrictions on general visitors will remain in force for the Bangladeshi team, which includes a strict mandatory 14-day quarantine in the respective hotel rooms upon arrival. “
Two weeks later, Hassan said Bangladesh would not go ahead with the tour if the 14-day quarantine was implemented. Soon after, Sri Lankan Sports Minister Namal Rajapaksa said he had asked the SLC to consult with the country’s Covid-19 runners’ organization for then, SLC proposed to its fitness government that Bangladesh’s excursion team quarantine two weeks between the two countries, but this was not agreed.
A proposed travel programme has also been established, indicating that visitors can begin their education one day after arriving in Sri Lanka, and the first two tests will be conducted in Pallekele and the third in Colombo.
But the procedure took a turn before this month when the Sri Lankan government insisted that visitors would have to quarantine their hotel rooms for 14 days before they could begin education in isolation. Initial team of 27 members who started education last week, with all players, coaches and remote staff in a city hotel until Saturday.
With contributions from Andrew Fidel Fernando