West Indies To Tour Pakistan Every Year For the Next Five Years

It looks like cricket in Pakistan is final on the route for a comeback as the West Indies Cricket Board has agreed to send their team to Pakistan every year for the next five years. Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Najam Sethi informed the media. West Indies will also host the South Asian team in the US, most probably for a triangular series; the third team has not been decided yet.

Pakistan hosted Sri Lanka for a T20 match in Lahore in Pakistan for the first time since the 2009 terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan team which killed six police officers and wounded some Sri Lankan players. Although Pakistan managed to get Zimbabwe to tour Pakistan, the tour was not approved by the ICC. This effort by the cricket fraternity to bring cricket back in Pakistan is finally taking some shape.

“We have an agreement with West Indies for the next five years, this is an independent bilateral arrangement, independent of the FTPs (Future Tour Programmes) that would be arranged with the International Cricket Council in December/January.” Sethi said.

The first series between the two will be played from 29^th March to 1^st April in Pakistan, but the venues are still to be decided by the PCB.

Pakistan has played all their home games in the UAE since 2009, but the ICC made an effort to bring cricket back in Pakistan by sending a World XI team which played a three-match T20 series in Lahore. This world XI tour was followed by the Sri Lankan team which played the last T20 of the three-match series in Lahore.

The West Indies team was scheduled to tour Pakistan in November earlier, but the tour was further postponed.