West Indies agree to tour Pakistan for 3 T20Is

West Indies agree to tour Pakistan for 3 T20Is

International cricket once again is set to make a brief comeback in Pakistan as the current world champion in the 20-over format, West Indies have finally agreed to tour the cricket deprived nation for a three-match T20 Internationals (T20I) series next month. The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Najam Sethi announced this on Sunday. The matches will be played on April 1, 2 and 4, in Karachi. 

“It's a good news that West Indies have confirmed three Twenty20 internationals to be played in Karachi on April 1, 2 and 4,” Sethi told media in Dubai on the sidelines of the ongoing third edition of the Pakistan Super League (PSL).

This particular tour was initially scheduled to take place in November last year and matches were supposed to be played in Lahore. How it got postponed to late March due to 'unforeseen circumstances' and has now been postponed further by a couple of days.

Meanwhile, recently PCB got a clearance from the international security experts to host matches outside Lahore as well. That is why they have decided to allot these matches to Karachi, which is Pakistan's second most popular cricketing venue.

Since the terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan team bus in Lahore in 2009, Pakistan has been isolated as a venue for international cricket. After that unfortunate incident, the country has only hosted two T20Is and three one-day internationals against Zimbabwe in 2015, a three-match T20I series against a World XI and a one-off 20-over fixture against Sri Lanka last year.

However, 2017's final of the PSL was hosted in Lahore and insiders believe it played a major role to convince the Cricket West Indies for this brief series. 

Sethi has also confirmed that the PCB is trying to convince the Bangladesh Cricket Board to send its team to the United States for a T20I tri-series next year. In November, last year, the PCB chief had signed an agreement with Cricket West West Indies to play T20Is series every year for a period of the next five years, in Pakistan and the USA.

“While West Indies tour to Pakistan is a one-off series, we are also in consultation with the WIC on a tri-series, also involving Bangladesh in first year, for a period of five years,” he said.

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