'Not too keen about Pakistan tour' - BCB president

Bangladesh will not consider or discuss tours to Pakistan, as relations between the two sides continue to remain cold.

There had been talks - in April - of sending Bangladesh's the High Performance or Under-19 team to Pakistan but those plans have been put to bed with the BCB making arrangements for them to play teams from New Zealand and England.

"We haven't spoken about going to Pakistan since we heard their decision from the media," BCB president Nazmul Hassan said. "The national team [touring Pakistan] is out of the question. Our HP or U-19 [teams] might have gone there but when they made this announcement [of postponing the Bangladesh tour] we are no longer in talks. After this, there is no question of talking about the HP tour.

"They will go elsewhere. We have confirmed programmes with New Zealand and England. We are in talks with two more countries. Within a couple of months, we will be releasing the specific schedules. Many of these series will be held at home."

Rather than forcing the Pakistan tour in July this year, the BCB want the Bangladesh players rest so they can be ready for the home Tests against Australia in August-September, the tour of South Africa in September-October and the Bangladesh Premier League T20 tournament in November-December.

"I think we can rest our players during that time," Hassan said. "Our boys are playing a lot these days. From Champions Trophy they'll come home, play against Australia and then head off to South Africa. From there, they will come home and start with the BPL, and then they have more cricket.

"I am not too keen about the Pakistan tour. But if we need to play [in that time], we have four or five countries lined up to play against Bangladesh. It won't be hard to arrange matches, but right now we are not really keen on filling that gap either."

However, the only caveat is the ICC deadline for automatic qualification for the 2019 World Cup, which is on September 30 this year. Hassan said on Saturday, as he did couple of times last year, that the BCB are in touch with the ICC to find out what they have to do to make the cut for the World Cup.