Nahid Rana refuses to travel to Pakistan for T20 series, with Fielding coach James Pamment also withdrawing.
Nahid Rana refuses to be a part of the Bangladesh touring party that will leave for Pakistan.
Three members, including Rana, have withdrawn from the Bangladeshi touring group that is scheduled to travel to Pakistan the next week. Nathan Keily, the strength and conditioning coach, and James Pamment, the new fielding coach, have also resigned.
Nazmul Abedeen Fahim, the chairman of cricket operations for the BCB, speculates that Rana may have made the choice after encountering a challenging circumstance while attempting to leave Pakistan earlier this month due to rising border tensions between India and Pakistan.
When the players had to be pulled from the PSL, Rana was a member of the Peshawar Zalmi team. Although he is now on tour with the Bangladesh team, Rana’s colleague Rishad Hossain was also part of the abroad group that was forced to depart Pakistan.
A few other Bangladeshi players, according to Fahim, were similarly apprehensive about coming on tour but decided against it after learning that the majority of the team would be travelling to Pakistan.
“What Nahid Rana and Rishad faced recently, you can’t blame them for being traumatised. Which is probably why Rana has withdrawn from the tour. Among the coaching staff, James [Pamment] and Nathan [Keily], who are our fielding coach and trainer, aren’t going. The rest are ready to go there,” Fahim said.
“There were hesitations among few other players. But later, when they saw others are going, they felt that it might not be difficult to go there and they changed their initial position.”
Fahim said that Pakistan provides the highest form of security measures during cricket tours. “I saw during the Champions Trophy how much security is provided in Pakistan. I don’t think you can do more than that. The PCB chairman (Mohsin Naqvi) assured us to give the highest security,” he said.