In what is a welcome development, the England Cricket Board has decided to send in their team to Bangladesh for a bilateral series. This decision comes in after a long period of intense deliberations and debates about the security conditions prevailing in Bangladesh.
However, Andrew Strauss has maintained that the final decision to tour the country will be left to the players and that there will be no pressure from the board. This is not an isolated incidence when a country has had issues touring nations owing to a security threat. Over the years, many tournaments had to be cancelled because teams were not very confident about the security of the touring nation.
Here, in this list, we take a look at 5 such instances when teams have decided to call off their series because of security concerns.
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#1 Australia, 1996 World Cup
Back in the year 1996, Sri Lanka was in the midst of a civil war which was raging between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. As a result of this volatile situation the Australian cricket team decided not to tour the island nation during the 1996 World Cup as they feared a suicide attack by the rebel group.
These fears were justified as just before the World Cup, there was a bomb blast just outside the hotel of the Australian team. The points for this match was awarded to the hosts.
Ironically Sri Lanka went on to beat Australia in the finals to lift the trophy.
#2 England, 2003 World Cup
The 2003 World Cup was rocked with controversy when the England team decided not to visit Zimbabwe to play their fixture. This came even as Robert Mugabe, the then President of the country faced massive backlash over his archaic policies against the white minority.
Even senior Zimbabwe players like Andy Flower and Henry Olonga decided to stage a protest against the oppressive regime as they donned a black armband in their matches.
The England team, which consisted of white players decided not to visit the country, but the ICC refused to hear their plea and awarded the match to Zimbabwe.
#3 New Zealand, 2003 World Cup
There was no end to the controversies during the 2003 World Cup. Much like the English squad, New Zealand too decided not to visit Kenya, which was jointly hosting the World Cup owing to the threats issued by terrorist organisation Boko Haram.
The ICC, however, refused to take this stand into account and thus refused the appeal made by the Black Caps to shift their match to South Africa. Kenya were awarded points for this match.
New Zealand Cricket did not budge from their stand and maintained that the decision made by the ICC was not a reasonable one.
#4 Australia, 2015
Calling off tours due to security reasons is not something new to the Australians. Back in 2015, Cricket Australia postponed their trip to Bangladesh due to security reasons.
"Following the most recent information from Australian government agencies and our own security advisors, we have decided that, regrettably, we have no alternative but to postpone the tour", James Sutherland, the Cricket Australia chief executive officer announced.
This decision was made when there were reports that the security of the team could be compromised if they embarked on this trip. CA's head of security Sean Carroll met with the Bangladesh government, the Bangladesh Cricket Board and the Australian High Commission.
#5 Australia U-19, 2016
Much like the senior team, the Australia U-19 team too refused to tour Bangladesh for the 2016 U-19 World Cup. Cricket Australia, CEO James Sutherland said that this decision was taken only after the advice of the government which clearly said that the security concerns were the same which caused the senior team to withdraw from their tour.
This decision did not go down well with the ICC and Dave Richardson said that the ICC takes its responsibilities around the safety and security of ICC events extremely seriously and that while it respected CA's decision, they were not entirely satisfied with this stance.
Ireland replaced Australia in the tournament which was won by the West Indies U-19 team.
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