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Cricket Australia slammed over 'shameful' treatment of Bangladesh

Before taking the fight to Australia in the Cricket World Cup on Thursday, Bangladesh captain Mashrafe Mortaza said his team should have the chance to tour the country more often.

He labelled their 16-year Test absence "disappointing", a sentiment echoed by broadcasting doyen Jim Maxwell, while Australian journalist Melinda Farrell declared Cricket Australia should be ashamed.

Australia's clash with Bangladesh in Nottingham marked just the 10th match between the two teams in any format in the past decade, though they will travel to Bangladesh next June for two Test matches.

A Twenty20 series in Bangladesh originally scheduled for this summer has also been moved to September 2021 to accommodate the changes in Australia's home series against New Zealand though Bangladesh's absence from Australia is far more significant, with the exception of the 2015 World Cup.

Bangladesh last played Tests in Australia in 2003 in Darwin and Townsville, while they were clean swept in a three-match one-day series in 2008.

The team were meant to play a two-match Test series in the winter of 2018, but that tour was eventually cancelled.

There are no Bangladesh Tests scheduled in Australia in the current Future Tour Program through to 2023.

“Shameful that Bangladesh have been treated very shabbily by CA,” Farrell wrote on Twitter before Thursday’s match.

Bangaldesh centurion Mushfiqur Rahim, 32, has played Australia just 12 times across all formats. Pic: Getty
Bangaldesh centurion Mushfiqur Rahim, 32, has played Australia just 12 times across all formats. Pic: Getty

Maxwell hinted at his disapproval over CA’s decision making while commentating on the contest.

“They’ve hardly ever played in Australia and you can work out the reason for that if you want,” he said on the BBC.

“For a lot of people who support the encouragement of every team that plays world cricket it’s been disappointing the only matches of any significance between Bangladesh in Australia have been in Cairns and Darwin.”

In response to a Bangladeshi cricket reporter’s praise of the team’s efforts in England, Australian journalist Adam Collins said CA treat its opposing cricket board ‘like the trash of the cricket world’.

The skipper Mortaza was one of just four players in Bangladesh's current squad to have played in Australia outside of the last World Cup.

While the next four years of cricket are set, he called on the boards to work out their differences and book more meetings.

"Since Darwin I haven't played any Test cricket in Australia. It's really disappointing, I know, as a Test nation," he said prior to the match.

"You can learn a lot of things when you're travelling, that sort of part of the world like Australia, England, New Zealand and obviously South Africa.

"So there's so many things we can learn, especially as an Asian team.

"It's always disappointing when that sort of thing happens. It's all about negotiating, I think. If our cricket boards and Australian cricket board can negotiate with each other, then it might be possible."

Generally regarded as a minnow in their early years, Bangladesh emerged as a contender at the World Cup with wins over West Indies and South Africa before they played Australia at Trent Bridge.

They shocked Australia in 2005 with a five-wicket win in Cardiff, as well as claiming their first Test victory over the team in 2017.

"It's been a nice memory (beating Australia in 2005)," Mortaza said

"I can remember everything what we did in that particular day and night.

"That night suddenly, when the limousine was coming in front of the hotel and everyone was inside."

with AAP