Cook assures England he will go, Morgan unsure

England's leading Test century-maker Alastair Cook has assured England he will travel to Bangladesh and lead the team on the Test leg of the tour.

But the England & Wales Cricket Board still has to convince Eoin Morgan, the one-day captain, that their security plans are tight enough to ensure the team’s safety on the trip. Morgan is understood still to have major reservations about the tour and a series of one-on-one meetings with Andrew Strauss, the England team director, will be held with those players who remain unconvinced about going to Bangladesh, reports The Telegraph.

Cook’s decision will perhaps help some players wavering over whether to go to Bangladesh after the ECB’s security adviser, Reg Dickason, cleared the tour to go ahead at the end of last week.

The birth of Cook’s second child is due at the end of September and he could have used that as a reason for missing the tour but has been satisfied by the ECB’s security proposal and will be aware of his responsibility to show leadership as the team’s most senior and experienced cricketer. 

The squad for the one-day series against Bangladesh will be named next week after the Twenty20 against Pakistan on Tuesday and the England management will want to know Morgan’s decision in advance of the selection meeting.

The selectors met at Trent Bridge on Monday to pick the squad for the Twenty20 against Pakistan, an opportunity to catch up with Morgan and hear his latest views. 

England are using the one-day series in Bangladesh as a chance to give their coaching staff a break with Paul Farbrace and Ottis Gibson not arriving until the Test leg of the tour. Paul Collingwood and Andy Hurry, the director of the England development programme at Loughborough, will step in for the one-day series in their place.

At the weekend it emerged that Mal Loye, the former England one-day batsman, left his job at the Bangladesh Academy in Dhaka over security fears when he learned ISIS planned an attack on the Australian cricket team, which later pulled out of a tour to the country.

David Leatherdale, the chief executive of the Professional Cricketers’ Association who was part of the three-man security delegation that went to Bangladesh earlier this month, believes some players may pull out once the squads are picked. 

Liam Plunkett, who toured Bangladesh with England in 2010, has said he will make a decision once selected for the tour and admitted the issue is hanging over the team as they try to win a one-day series against Pakistan.