Bangladesh tour is Cook’s biggest call
England last night gave the provisional green light to their threatened tour of Bangladesh but whether alastair Cook will lead them there remains to be seen.
Players and management were told at a meeting in london that England’s safety advisor Reg dickason is happy with security arrangements for October’s tour after carrying out inspections this month in dhaka and Chittagong.
Yet players will be given the chance to pull out of the trip if they are concerned about safety in a country where 20 people were killed in an attack by five gunmen last month that targeted westerners. One man who might not be there for a very different reason is the captain, as Cook’s wife alice is expecting their second child around the time of a tour that starts on September 30 and will comprise three one-day internationals and two Tests. That will provide a huge dilemma for Cook who must decide whether to lead by example and take his team on a tour with extra scrutiny or be with his family to ensure he is present at the birth. The England captain left Essex’s championship match against leicestershire at grace Road early yesterday so he could join the players in their central london hotel for last night’s talks. dickason was joined by Professional Cricketers association chief executive david leatherdale and John Carr of the ECB, who all made the inspection trip, and initially addressed just Cook and oneday captain Eoin Morgan. Then the group were joined by players and coaches for further talks in which dickason stressed England would get unprecedented protection.
The players then discussed the situation before provisionally accepting the advice and agreeing in principle to tour.
England will be sympathetic to Cook’s dilemma and would back any move to grant him paternity leave, but the sensitivity of this tour makes it a delicate situation.
There is a precedent in that andrew Flintoff, then the Eng- land captain, missed the birth of his son Corey in 2006 to stay with his team in India and Cook clearly has one of the most difficult decisions of his career to make.
It is a sensitive situation because australia pulled out of a trip to Bangladesh last year for security reasons.
That means any England withdrawal would leave Bangladesh in exile along with Pakistan, who have not staged internationals since the terrorist attack on the Sri lanka team in lahore in 2009.