When Cricket Australia announced that the Australian cricket team would not be touring Bangladesh, it was heartbreak for millions of fans. It's bad enough that Bangladesh will be missing out on a return to international cricket after a long break, but the apparent reasons behind it make it even worse. 

A chance to take on Australia in a Test series after nine years was a relishing prospect for Bangladesh. We've been playing excellent cricket at home in the recent times and facing an Australian side that's relatively young could have made for a feisty contest, something Bangladesh rarely gets to share with Australia. 

It's necessary to understand what has caused this, because to many it might seem confusing that an Australian team that visited us in the political turmoil of 2013-14 would cancel now, when things aren't nearly as bad. But this cancellation comes on the back of a warning from the Australian government that they have information that individuals or certain groups may target "Australian interests" in Bangladesh. Judging from the Australian governments political indulgences around the world, it is a likely scenario that this goes beyond what the domestic situation in Bangladesh is. 

Cricket Australia thought it wise to cancel the tour based on their government's concern for security, like when we cancelled our tour to Pakistan a couple of years back. The obvious response to that statement would be that Pakistan's situation at that time can't be compared to ours in any way. But if the Australian government has information that convinces them there's a threat to Australian interests in Bangladesh, they have the right to protect their citizens, and we must respect that. 

There remains a nagging concern that this could be the beginning of a dark period for us, if teams might be unwilling to tour Bangladesh in the future. We have mentioned Pakistan already, and after Australia cancelled a Pakistan tour in 2008 for security reasons, these concerns were confirmed a year later when a Sri Lankan team bus was attacked in Lahore. The fear that our future could follow the same path as our unlucky neighbours is difficult to live with.

Although there are reasons to fear such an outcome, there is enough evidence to also suggest that such concerns are baseless. Terrorist threats in Pakistan and Bangladesh are of two different natures, and law enforcement in Bangladesh has shown their mettle in eradicating terrorists for the most part. We've seen with two major ICC events in the last five years that comprehensive security measures were taken to a successful end, and both of these events came and went without any notable hindrances. Another thing to consider would be Australia's history of cancelling tours, which makes curious reading when we see they cancelled their world cup matches in Sri Lanka in 1996 because of a Tamil Tiger bombing, but didn't think it was necessary to cancel when a similar incident took place in London during their 2005 tour. Their cancellation of Zimbabwe tour in 2002 was followed by them having no qualms about going there for world cup matches in 2003, or a series in 2004. If Zimbabwe seemed good enough to go back to a year later, so could Bangladesh. 

From what we've seen and been told in the media, it seems as though the reason behind this unfortunate incident was more about them than us. If foreign cricket boards remain reasonable and the Bangladeshi authorities keep providing air tight security to the players and the fans, this could just as well be a one-time thing.

When he's not obsessing over football, Azmin Azran spends his time devising ways of not getting mugged, only to fail miserably. Give him advice at fb.com/azminazran