The Bangladesh Under-19 team had a tremendous build-up to the last ICC Under-19 World Cup, which took place in Bangladesh in 2016 and under the leadership of Mehedi Hasan the home side achieved their best result in the tournament by finishing third.

The Under-19 cricket team is always in focus as a number of the current national stars showed glimpses of their calibre during stints with the junior side before breaking into the senior team.

With another Youth World Cup knocking on the door, everyone is curious about the new talent and the team's chances in the next World Cup, scheduled to be held in New Zealand from January 13 next year.

The group of budding cricketers started their preparations for the mega event almost nine months ago and the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) has already hired Australian Damien Wright to fill the position of head coach and nurture them.

It is believed that there is no dearth of talent in the team, but they are lacking in international matches, which could add valuable experience ahead of the looming challenge in New Zealand.

There were plans of playing a tri-series in India involving Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the hosts, but that fell through which is why the young cricketers are now scheduled to play some matches against local selections in Khulna involving players from the High Performance squad.

BCB CEO Nizamuddin Chowdhury reasoned that it was easy to play matches before the last World Cup because every team sought an opportunity to play here and become acclimatised with the conditions, which is not the case this time around.

"We were also supposed to play a series against Sri Lanka but it has also been cancelled, but we have plans to send the team to New Zealand earlier so that they can take good preparations before the World Cup," said Nizamuddin yesterday.

However, the question is not about arranging tours ahead of global events; the issue here is the larger one of whether there are comprehensive programmes for the Bangladesh A and Under-19 teams. If the lack of international matches hinders the preparation of the Under-19 team for the World Cup, then the lack of requisite international exposure for those players who have dropped off the national radar as well as emerging talents depicts a sordid picture.

The reality is that series for the Bangladesh A team have been few and far between -- their last tour took place in October-November 2015 when the side visited South Africa and Zimbabwe.

It would be unfortunate if someone says that the BCB High Performance team's current visit to Australia is in lieu of the dearth of A team matches, especially when the HP team's matches have been far from competitive ones as they are playing against hastily assembled teams.

Is this happening because the authorities' focus is solely on the national team? There is a cricket operations committee which is supposed to communicate with different boards to arrange bilateral series for the A team, while the development committee is supposed to arrange international matches for the Under-19 team. However, Nizamuddin took full responsibility.

"I am absolutely responsible as CEO of the board. We have a four-year plan with New Zealand but they were unable to honour it this year. However, it will happen next year. We are also negotiating with the West Indies for an A team series. We are discussing a long-term programme with our Indian, Australian and England counterparts as well," informed Nizamuddin.