International cricket's biggest Test is security

London

WHEN England's cricket team plays a one-day international match in Bangladesh on Oct 7, it will do so without its captain, Eoin Morgan, who recently opted out of the tour, citing security concerns. Alex Hales, another leading English player, made the same decision; and the team's largest fan group has said that it, too, will follow an official government security warning and skip the tour.

The withdrawals of the players, and the nervousness among fans, reflected serious and increasingly common safety concerns in top-flight international cricket. Pakistan, the world's top-ranked Test team, has not played a match on home soil in more than seven years. Afghanistan, a rising power in one-day internationals, has never hosted an official international match. In Bangladesh, where the national teams are ranked seventh in one-day internationals and ninth in Tests, concerns about terrorism predate the coming England trip - in the past year, Australian cricket officials have called off two tours.

The International Cricket Council (ICC), which governs the game worldwide, said it was "sad" that security concerns were increasingly making top players and teams unwilling to travel and preventing a handful of countries from being able to host them. The ICC, it said through a spokesman, "would like to see international cricket being played safely in as many countries as possible".

Still, England's security concerns are not unfounded. In July, an attack by five gunmen on a cafe in Dhaka, Bangladesh, resulted in the deaths of 20 hostages, most of them foreigners.

Morgan, who had played an Indian Premier League match after a bomb exploded outside the stadium in 2010 and also played in Bangladesh during political unrest in 2013, said that he had opted out because he had "told myself I would not put myself in that situation again".

Bangladesh is relieved that England is coming at all. In 2015, Australia postponed a tour to the country indefinitely, citing security concerns, and this year it withdrew its under-19 team from the World Cup there for similar reasons. At the time, the Australian government warned of "reliable information to suggest that militants may be planning to target Australian interests in Bangladesh".

England's decision to go ahead with its tour - which will include three one-day internationals and two Test matches, which use the sport's longest format - was made after consultation with the England Cricket Board's security chief, Reg Dickason. In August, Mr Dickason toured the stadiums and the cities where England is set to play. The ICC has no power to mandate that teams like England or Australia play in Bangladesh, or any nation - all matters relating to safety and security in a bilateral series rest with the participating members.

The ICC is responsible only for the safety and security of its officials, and after conducting its own security checks in Bangladesh, the ICC ruled recently that the series with England would be safe enough to send its officials to oversee the matches.

Such security concerns have become all too familiar to the ICC. Pakistan has not played at home in a Test since March 2009, when Sri Lanka's team bus was attacked by Islamic militants en route to the third day of a Test in Lahore; gunshots killed a driver and six Pakistani police officers and injured several players. Ever since, Pakistan has been forced to play its home matches in the United Arab Emirates, making the country's rise to No 1 in the world Test rankings all the more notable. NYTIMES