Bangladesh ‘monitoring’ Sri Lanka before July cricket tour

DHAKA, AFP: Bangladesh cricket officials said yesterday they were monitoring security in Sri Lanka in the wake of last month’s terror attacks and ahead of a planned tour slated for July. 

The national team narrowly avoided being caught in the New Zealand mosque attacks of 15 March that killed 51 people. 

Bangladesh’s one-day international series in Sri Lanka was scheduled to take place in July, having been brought forward from December. 

But the fate of the series has been thrown into doubt following the 21 April Easter Sunday attacks in Sri Lanka’s churches and hotels that killed more than 250 people. 

“We won’t say the series is uncertain, but we are monitoring the situation through the Bangladesh High Commission and our foreign ministry,” cricket board chief executive Nizamuddin Chowdhury told AFP. 

“We will also see what the Sri Lankan Cricket board has to say about the present situation,” he added. 

Bangladesh’s players and officials came within 50 m (54 yards) of the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch in March before a suspected white supremacist began indiscriminately shooting Muslim worshippers. 

They were in the city to play a Test match, which was promptly cancelled.