Dominica: The Bangladesh men’s cricket team has reportedly endured a tumultuous five-hour sea journey from Saint Lucia to Dominica — the venue for the opening T20I against the West Indies later on Saturday — with several players falling sick and vomiting throughout the journey.
The Bangladesh team took a ferry for the 180km sea journey from Saint Lucia — where they played the second Test — to Dominica, but by the time they reached their destination on Thursday afternoon the effects of the sea had left them exhausted.
A report in prothomalo.com late on Friday said that the players were “anxious” about the sea journey as none of them had experienced a “five-hour-long voyage before”.
Their misery was reportedly compounded by the inclement weather due to the cyclone that hit two days back.
“The waves started as soon as the ferry reached mid sea. The ferry wasn’t big, so six to seven feet high waves were enough to make it rock wildly. The waves felt fierce while crossing the dolphin channel,” said the report.
It added that while it was “quite normal” for regular sea travellers, for the Bangladesh cricketers, it wasn’t a “pleasant experience”.
The report said that West Indies cricketers, commentators and journalists too were there on ferry, adding that the worst affected were pace bowler Shoriful Islam, wicketkeeper-batsman Nurul Hasan and manager Nafees Iqbal.
“Nafees and Nurul recovered a little in the 40-minute break in Martinique but Shoriful again got sick in the journey from Martinique to Dominica. He vomited multiple times. At one point, he even took off his shirt to calm down,” the report added.
The report said that it is not known why a decision was taken to ferry the players from one destination to another by sea, given that all touring teams prefer to fly. It added that former West Indies pace bowler, Curtly Ambrose, who is with the commentary team, “did not even join fellow commentators Athar Ali Khan, Ian Bishop on this journey”.
A cricketer was quoted as saying in the report that, “We are the ones who can fall sick and die here, us, nothing will happen to them (board officials).”
Another said, “I have toured many countries, this is the first time I am experiencing something like this. None of us are used to this. Forget about playing, what will happen if one of us gets seriously ill in the ferry. This is the worst tour of my life.”
–IANS