New Zealand's IPL 2024-bound players set to skip Pakistan T20I series: Reports

New Zealand players playing in IPL 2024 are all set to skip the upcoming T20I series against Pakistan. IPL 2022 starts from March 22 with the schedule of the first 21 games being released by the BCCI.

New Zealand will reportedly tour Pakistan for a T20I series before the T20 World Cup. Recently Pakistan lost to New Zealand in a T20I series in New Zealand in January 2024. The Kiwis won the series 4-1.

Kane Williamson, Daryl Mitchell, Trent Boult, Rachin Ravindra, Glenn Phillips, Devon Conway, Mitchell Santner, and Lockie Ferguson are among the players playing in IPL 2024. As per reports in Geo Super, the Kiwi stars are unlikely to leave their assignments midway through the IPL league stage.

Pakistan hosted New Zealand in a white-ball series during IPL 2023 last year as well. A second-string Kiwi side played the series with the first-choice players busy playing in the IPL. Meanwhile, Pakistan has a buffet of T20I matches lined up before the IPL.

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Pakistan To Host New Zealand, England Ahead Of T20 World Cup

Currently, the country is hosting PSL 2024. The tournament comes to an end on March 18. Apart from hosting New Zealand for a T20I series, they also host England for a four-match T20I series in May. First and foremost the matches against New Zealand will be played from April 14 to April 28, with Lahore and Rawalpindi hosting the matches.

Pakistan had a forgetful ICC World Cup 2023 campaign where they finished fifth on the points table winning just four games and losing five. One of the losses was against Afghanistan as well.

Since that tournament, a lot has changed in Pakistan cricket. Babar Azam stepped down as the Pakistan captain across formats. Shan Masood replaced him as the Test captain and Shaheen Afridi as the T20I captain.

Under Shaheen, Pakistan lost the T20I series against New Zealand 4-1 in January earlier this year. That saw Zaka Ashraf resign as the PCB Chief. He held the post after the World Cup just for a few months.

Zaka Ashraf has resigned from his post. Ashraf took over as the chairman of PCB in July last year and replaced Najam Sethi. This is Ashraf’s second tenure as the chairman of the PCB and his recent tenure is considered to be one of the worst in the history of Pakistan Cricket.

The Pakistani team has not been in great form in international cricket since Zaka Ashraf took over as the chairman of the PCB. Pakistan were knocked from the Asia Cup and ODI World Cup 2023 whereas they have lost seven matches on the trot against Australia and New Zealand. That included a Test series clean sweep against Australia in December last year.

“Zaka Ashraf tendered his resignation to the Patron Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar during the cricket board’s management committee meeting at the National Cricket Academy in Lahore,” a PCB statement said.

“In his concluding remarks, Mr Zaka Ashraf thanked the honorable Patron PCB for the confidence and trust reposed by him and extended his best wishes and prayers for the betterment of Pakistan and Pakistan cricket,” the release read.

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