The Pakistan Cricket Board confirmed this week that they would host Zimbabwe for a limited-overs tour from the end of October and the cricketing world will be watching.
Photo Copyright – Steve Haag Sports
To date, the only international cricket played since the widespread lockdowns associated with efforts to contain the coronavirus pandemic has been played in England.
While franchise T20 tournaments have been held in the Caribbean and the UAE, Pakistan are set to lead the way for the return of cricket on the subcontinent.
Pakistan has seen its number of new coronavirus infections gradually decrease and the PCB have been given government clearance to host Zimbabwe behind closed doors.
Cricket board’s available resources are far from evenly distributed among even the Test-playing nations and Pakistan will lead the way in demonstrating whether or not bio-secure environments can be maintained outside of the first world.
With Sri Lanka planning on hosting Bangladesh soon as well, there will rightly be a lot of attention paid to how Pakistan go about hosting the three T20Is and three ODIs against Zimbabwe.
In keeping with bio-secure protocols Zimbabwe plan to take a 32-man squad to Pakistan as they will not be afforded any warm-up matches. Both sides will enjoy intra-squad warm-ups while most of Pakistan’s group will be playing in their National T20 tournament which starts on 30 September and will serve as a dry-run for the visit of Zimbabwe.
The PCB will also be hopeful that being among the first nations to host international cricket will encourage more of the elite teams to agree to tour in the near future.
For Zimbabwe, it offers a rare opportunity to test themselves against a top team. They have begun preparations for the tour in Harare with a provisional squad called up for a training camp, which began earlier this week.
The ODIs, which will be staged in Multan, will be a part of ICC’s Cricket World Cup Super League. The multi-year league will serve as a qualification path for the 2023 Cricket World Cup.
