Pardafas Reporter
Australian skipper Pat Cummins (C) chats with teammates in the first Test vs Pakistan in Rawalpindi.
The Australian cricket team is now in Pakistan for its first tour of the country in 24 years, preparing for a fully-fledged bilateral series.
A 35-member Kangaroos squad landed at Islamabad airport via a chartered plane. The visiting team was welcomed by Director Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Zakir Khan. The team was escorted to their hotel from the airport under tight security.
After spending a day in isolation, the Kangaroos will be able to train from Monday. The media managers of the Australian touring party are already in Rawalpindi.
Pakistan Test squad will complete isolation today and a practice session of the players has been scheduled for Sunday morning. Captain Babar Azam, Sarfraz Ahmed and Naseem Shah will also be part of the training.
Australia will play three Tests, three ODIs and a T20I from March 4 to April 5. Rawalpindi will host the Test series opener and white-ball leg while Karachi and Lahore will host the second and third Test respectively.
On Friday, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) had confirmed ticket prices for the three-Test match series between Pakistan and Australia during the latter’s historic tour of the country.
Pakistan, where cricket is celebrated as culture, has bred some of the world's best players, Prime Minister Imran Khan was a World Cup-winning captain.
But no major cricket nation has staged a full tour of the country in decades because of the threat of terror attacks.
The situation has sidelined a country that is both obsessed with the sport and worried about its reputation politically on the world stage.
In September 2021, England and New Zealand's cricket teams pulled out days before their planned tours of Pakistan citing an unspecified security threat.
It was supposed to be a watershed moment for Pakistan, but New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Arden refused to let its players fly over fear of "credible threat".
Experts say that Australia's current tour could help Pakistan boost political relationships with Western countries.
