KARACHI: Pakistan Cricket Board has announced that the cricket team will tour England and Wales in July 2021 for three ICC Cricket World Cup Super League ODIs and as many T20 matches.
The ODIs will be played in Cardiff, London (Lord’s) and Birmingham on 8, 10 and 13 July, respectively while the T20 matches will be held in Nottingham, Leeds and Manchester on 16, 18 and 20 July, respectively.
England leads the points table of the qualification league for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 with 30 points from two ODI series. Pakistan shares second spot with Australia on 20 points following a 2-1 series win over Zimbabwe.
The remaining eight sides in the 13-team competition are yet to play their opening fixtures in the Super League from which the seven top-ranked sides and World Cup hosts India will progress directly for the event to take place in October/November 2023.
The ODI series against England will be one of Pakistan’s three away fixtures in 2021 with the other two being against South Africa (April 2021) and Afghanistan (September 2021).
In addition to these away series, Pakistan will play two home Super League fixtures against New Zealand and West Indies in October and December 2021 respectively.
This will be Pakistan’s sixth consecutive tour to England. In 2016, Pakistan drew the four-Test series 2-2, won the ICC Championship Trophy in 2017, drew the two-Test series 1-1 in 2018, missed out on a place in the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2019 semi-finals by a fraction of a point and lost the three-Test series 1-0 in 2020.
“England and Wales is our second home as we have been visiting it regularly since 2016,” said Pakistan captain Babar Azam, adding that these tours have helped improve their cricket skills and they have a good understanding of the conditions and wickets there.
He said the series against South Africa, England and New Zealand provides us with opportunities to improve their rankings as lower-ranked sides are awarded more points if they win a series against the side that is ranked above them on the rankings table.
Pakistan is presently sixth in ODIs behind England, India, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, while Babar Azam’s side is ranked fourth behind Australia, England and India in T20Is. Pakistan sits seventh in Tests.
PCB announces Super League fixtures against England
More: https://t.co/Y3it7vEUDI#HarHaalMainCricket pic.twitter.com/xnyii1cXOJ— PCB Media (@TheRealPCBMedia) November 18, 2020
