DHAKA: Bangladesh and Zimbabwe may play a split three-Test series, with one game hosted by Bangladesh in January and the remaining two hosted by Zimbabwe, reports espncricinfo.

Two days after BCB president Nazmul Hassan said the Test series between Bangladesh and Zimbabwe in January would be shelved to concentrate on limited-overs cricket ahead of the World T20, the BCB's cricket operations committee has announced it is in discussion with their Zimbabwean counterparts to hold one Test in January apart from three Twenty20s.

The cricket operations committee chairman Naimur Rahman said that Zimbabwe Cricket (ZC) had proposed the teams play five T20s in Bangladesh after their series against Afghanistan ends on January 10. But Rahman said neglecting Test cricket was rarely beneficial.

“Every team is playing Test cricket during this time,” Rahman said. “They will also play in the World T20, so we have to play all the formats. We cannot avoid any of these formats. Test cricket is the real deal. We can improve in other formats if we do well in Tests. But if we just play T20s, we can't improve properly.

“We have always spoken about increasing Tests in the FTP. So there will be a negative effect on us if we don't play Tests despite the opportunity.”

The original schedule for this series featured three Tests, then it was cut to two in September and now there is a possibility of a full, if split series - one Test in Bangladesh, two Tests in Zimbabwe after the World T20. “If we play one Test here, we can play the other two there in July next year, in addition to an ODI series,” Rahman said.

Rahman also added the proposed series in January will likely be played in Khulna and Sylhet since most of the other venues in the country will be busy preparing for the Under-19 World Cup that begins on January 27.

Naimur also said Bangladesh will not be playing the World T20 warm-up match on March 4 since it clashes with the Asia Cup's schedule.

They will only play the warm-up game on March 6. The operations committee has also called off an initial plan to hold a training camp in Dharamsala of India in late January because of the different weather conditions compared to the time the World T20 will be played there.

BDST: 1024 HRS, DEC 24, 2015
SR