The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has announced the schedule for New Zealand’s two-leg tour of Pakistan. The Kiwis will play three ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup Super League games before returning for five ODIs and as many T20Is to defend their World Test Championship (WTC) championship.
On the first leg of the Pakistan tour, the teams will play Tests in Karachi (December 27-31) and Multan (January 4-8). New Zealand will then begin the second leg in Karachi with four T20Is in April, followed by the fifth T20I and two ODIs in Lahore and the last three ODIs in Rawalpindi in May.
A secret security worry caused New Zealand to cancel its tour of Pakistan last year, just hours before the first ODI in Rawalpindi. The PCB chairman, Ramiz Raja, declared at the time that it was ‘frustrating’ to see the Black Caps abandon the tour by acting unilaterally and not informing Pakistan of the security threat.
.@BLACKCAPS Test in Karachi (27-31 Dec) will be their first in the metropolitan city since October 1990 and first in Pakistan since the May 2002 Test in Lahore.
Complete details here ➡️ https://t.co/Ouo0445S6Y#PAKvNZ pic.twitter.com/B59m8q0VZE
— PCB Media (@TheRealPCBMedia) October 10, 2022
Due to security concerns, England later cancelled a short scheduled tour of Pakistan. However, England won the seven-match T20I series 4-3 last month when it travelled to Pakistan for the first time in 17 years. In December, England will also go to Pakistan for three Test matches.
“The better we will get as a unit” – Pakistan Cricket Board director on New Zealand tour
Zakir Khan, the director of international cricket for the PCB, highlighted that New Zealand is one of the strongest performing teams and predicted that playing them would help Pakistan improve across all formats. pcb.com.pk cited him as saying the following:
“New Zealand is one of the high-performing sides and the more we will play against the top teams in our backyard, the better we will get as a unit, which is crucial to our objective of featuring inside the top three across all formats,” he said in a PCB statement.
“The New Zealand matches will also provide opportunities to our youngsters to continue to watch and follow their favorite players in action, something they have missed when we were forced to play our international cricket offshore,” Zakir added.
This tour of New Zealand will give joy and respect to Pakistan and its people because after soo long international teams again started to tour Pakistan.
Written by Gulshan Kumar
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