England’s first-hand accounts of the Bangladesh security bubble helped assuage Australian cricketers’ doubts regarding their own trip, according to Pat Howard.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Cricket Australia (CA) postponed a two-Test tour of Bangladesh in 2015 because of security concerns; specifically the risk of a terrorist attack on Australian nationals.<\/p>\n
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CA has since monitored the situation closely but gave its final security clearance earlier this month following the last of many exhaustive pre-tour visits. Steve Smith’s squad will depart for Dhaka on Friday.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
England visited Bangladesh last year without incident. They were provided the same level of protection afforded to heads of state.<\/p>\n
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Australia will also be guarded by the same “ring of steel” that includes snipers, tanks and convoys featuring up to 2,000 security officials.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
At this stage, no member of Smith’s 14-man squad has indicated they want to pull out.<\/p>\n
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“They got a lot of confidence from the England players after Champions Trophy, talking to them and finding out how well Bangladesh security dealt with things,” CA team-performance manager Howard said.<\/p>\n
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“It was really important for players to talk to players who have experienced it.<\/p>\n
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“I’m not surprised that has helped and I’m not surprised our pre-tour has also helped.<\/p>\n
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“To a large extent the players are feeling in a very good space about this tour.”<\/p>\n
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That is not to say some players haven’t come to Howard with concerns and questions this year.<\/p>\n
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“Absolutely, and that’s fair enough,” he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“We’ve kept them updated on all the information we have.<\/p>\n
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“In making the ultimate decision to go or not to go, we wanted to make sure it was a well-informed decision.”<\/p>\n
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Batsmen Eoin Morgan and Alex Hales both refused to take part in England’s tour of Bangladesh last year.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Andrew Strauss, Howard’s equivalent at the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), made it clear at the time he was “disappointed”.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“It’s a choice. Players want to play for their country … but if anybody has a genuine fear, or their family does, then I understand,” Howard said of what his stance would be in a similar situation.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“We think we’ve got enough depth in Australian cricket to deal with any of those issues but we don’t have any players in that space.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
England’s first-hand accounts of the Bangladesh security bubble helped assuage Australian cricketers’ doubts regarding their own trip, according to Pat Howard. Cricket Australia (CA) postponed a two-Test tour of Bangladesh in 2015 because of security concerns; specifically the risk of a terrorist attack on Australian nationals. CA has since monitored the situation closely but gave its final security clearance earlier this month following the last of many exhaustive pre-tour visits. Steve Smith’s squad will depart for Dhaka on Friday. England visited Bangladesh last year without incident. They<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":9295,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9294"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9294"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9296,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9294\/revisions\/9296"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}