Australia postpone Bangladesh tour indefinitely

Australia’s tour to Bangladesh has been postponed indefinitely

Cricket Australia (CA) has confirmed that their tour to Bangladesh has been postponed, cricket.com.au reports. The scheduled month-long tour will be played at a later, the dates for which will be decided at a later meeting.

Reports earlier had suggested that the tour was likely to be called off as the Australian Test squad members were asked to report to their respective state teams on Sunday. Despite one final push by the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) to persuade Cricket Australia to go ahead with the tour, CA Chief Executive Officer (CEO) James Sutherland confirmed that the tour has been put off for now.

"After six days of extensive deliberations and research, we've come to the conclusion that we have no other alternative than to postpone our tour to Bangladesh," Sutherland said. "It's a very disappointing outcome from our perspective.”

The future of the series was thrown into doubt last week when the tour was put on hold temporarily in the wake of security concerns raised by Australia’s intelligence officials. Initial reports suggested that the team’s departure to Bangladesh was only delayed, but despite high-level meetings held between the top security personnel of both the countries, the tour has been postponed.

“Six days ago we were informed by ASIO and our Department of Foreign Affairs that there was a credible risk to Australians in Bangladesh and we've worked through a rigorous process to try and understand that. We've had three people on the ground meeting with Bangladesh Cricket, Bangladesh government sources and members of our foreign affairs department in Bangladesh,” he said.

“In the end, all things considered, we've made this decision to postpone the tour for now and we'll enter into discussions with the Bangladesh Cricket Board about when we can play this cricket series next," Sutherland said. "It's not really appropriate for me to go into specific detail on this. But all I can say is that the threats were credible and real and targeted, not only against Westerners but against Australians."