The English cricket team is going to tour Pakistan for the first time in the last 16 years, under which it will play a series of two T20 matches in Karachi in October next year. This T20 series between England and Pakistan will be part of the preparations for the T20 World Cup going to be held in India next year.
The Pakistan Cricket Board had earlier invited England to tour in January but this was not possible. England was already scheduled to play the Test series in Sri Lanka in January. The cricket boards of the two countries agreed to the series in October. England will tour Pakistan with all the good players of their team. Both matches will take place on 14 and 15 October at the Karachi National Stadium. The England team will arrive in Pakistan two days before the series and after playing the series will leave for India on 16 October for the T20 World Cup.
England has not visited Pakistan since the year 2005. England played a three-Test series and a five-match ODI series during their tour of Pakistan in 2005 and lost both series. After the terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in 2009 in Pakistan, Pakistan’s home series against England was held in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2012 and 2015 for security reasons.
Now international cricket is slowly turning to Pakistan. Sri Lanka played a Test series in Pakistan earlier this year and Zimbabwe also toured the country recently. This season’s Pakistan Super League also took place in Pakistan, whose final was held in Karachi on Tuesday. These series and tournaments have shown high-level security arrangements made by the PCB with government assistance and it has proved that Pakistan is safe for visiting foreign teams.
