Eoin Morgan and Alex Hales won’t tour Bangladesh, Andrew Strauss reacts

But the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) gave the tour the go-ahead following a fact-finding visit to Bangladesh by Reg Dickason, their security expert, and numerous players, including Alastair Cook, are understood to be ready to travel, while Moeen Ali and Chris Jordan have already said that they would be going across.

And after placing such faith in Morgan to revitalise England’s white-ball cricket despite being captain at the disastrous 2015 World Cup, Strauss has taken a body blow and where he says “disappointed” it could easily read “gutted”.

It means that even though England security chief Reg Dickason – an expert in his field – gave the tour the green light after an inspection alongside European Central Bank bigwig John Carr and player’s union boss David Leatherdale, Morgan is still unconvinced of his personal peace of mind.

Morgan and the opener Alex Hales, another known to be considering his withdrawal, were among the first group of contracted England Test and one-day players to attend the England academy in Loughborough on Friday for their regular end of season medicals and the contract appraisals with Strauss.

Sunday’s statement made reference to that painstaking exercise, and the security measures which will be put in place to ensure the squad’s safety.

Although Morgan has yet to rule himself out, he has admitted that memories of a bomb blast during one of his matches in India in 2010 and a bout of deadly political violence while he was playing in a Bangladeshi domestic tournament three years ago were weighing heavily on his mind.

In their last tour to Bangladesh in 2010, England clinched the series 3-0, but this is all together a different Bangladesh team – which has beaten Pakistan, India and South Africa in series at home over the past two years. It is a huge call by Morgan, who also met Strauss on Friday. Not even his Middlesex team-mates claim to be close to Morgan, who was not afraid to turn his back on his native Ireland to fulfil his ambitions with his adopted country.

“Would I like both our captains to be on that tour?”

But Morgan, speaking after England’s nine-wicket Twenty20 thrashing by Pakistan at Old Trafford on Wednesday, said it was hard to concentrate exclusively on cricket amid a backdrop of security worries.

Newman also termed the Irish as the most introvert character in the England team.

Strauss has publicly said any decision not to tour on safety grounds would be respected and would not be held against a player, but he will not have expected his captain to be one of only two staying behind. There are plenty more where they came from, too, and the likes of Sam Billings, Jonny Bairstow and Ben Duckett look better long-term prospects for 2019 than a captain already past his best. And it is one that England are entitled to feel hugely disappointed about. For, unless Morgan does an abrupt and unexpected about-turn, he will be letting down the adopted country that made him their one-day captain, wrote Nowman.