New Zealand Team On A Tour Of Pakistan After 18 Years

New Zealand team on a tour of Pakistan after 18 years, will play limited-overs series.

The New Zealand cricket team reached Pakistan for a limited-overs bilateral series after a long gap of 18 years. These matches will be played in Rawalpindi and Lahore.

After landing at the Islamabad airport, the players were taken to their hotels under heavy security.

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has arranged a bio-bubble (a safe environment for players to protect against corona) at their hotel for New Zealand players and officials.

New Zealand had earlier toured Pakistan in 2003 for an ODI series. The team did not come to Pakistan after that due to security reasons.

New Zealand, led by Tom Latham, has arrived here without their regular captain, Kane Williamson, and some other key players. Some of these players are participating in IPL and some are on rest.

Regular coach Gary Stead has also not accompanied the visiting team, which will play three ODIs in Rawalpindi and five T20 Internationals in Lahore.

The PCB and New Zealand Cricket have decided not to play next week’s ODI series under the International Cricket Council (ICC) Cricket World Cup Super League due to the non-availability of the Decision Review System (DRS).

In such a situation, it will be a bilateral series. The New Zealand team will tour Pakistan again in the 2022-23 season to play two Tests and three ODIs.

Both the boards have agreed that these 50-over matches will be part of qualifying for the ICC Men’s World Cup 2023. Some key players from New Zealand will join the team on Sunday.

These players were not part of the recently played T20 series in Bangladesh. In this, Daryl Mitchell, Todd Astle, Ish Sodhi, Mark Chapman, and Martin Guptill will join the T20 team.

Rameez to take over as PCB chairman today.

Former captain Rameez Raja will take over as the new chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on Monday.

The PCB announced on Saturday that a special meeting of the Board of Governors was convened on Monday in which the Election Commissioner of the PCB, Justice (Retd) Sheikh Azmat Saeed, would conduct the election and preside over the meeting.

It is certain that Rameez will be elected as the new chairman of PCB in place of Ehsan Mani. Mani’s term ended last month.