0
CALCUTTA, Jan 4: India will undertake a full tour of Pakistan for the first time since 1989 and play three Tests and five one-dayers beginning in March, the cricket board announced here on Sunday.
Indian cricket board president Jagmohan Dalmiya said the team would be leaving in the first week of March and would stay in Pakistan until the middle of April. "The tour programme is yet to be decided, but India will play three Test matches and five one-day internationals," he said.-AFP
Indian team to visit Pakistan in March
KOLKATA, Jan 4: India will travel to Pakistan in March for their first Test tour in more than 14 years, the Indian cricket board announced on Sunday.
"We're touring Pakistan from the first week of March to the middle of April," Jagmohan Dalmiya, president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), told reporters.
"It's been decided that we'll play three Tests and five one-dayers."
India have not gone on a full tour of Pakistan since a drawn four-match series in 1989-90 owing to political tensions over the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir.
The Indian government had blocked cricket ties with Pakistan three years ago but have relented as relations between the two nations have improved.
"We're proposing to Pakistan that the one-dayers be held first and the Tests later. The schedule and venues will be decided shortly," Dalmiya said.
India's Pakistan trip had been planned from late February but the BCCI had sought a fresh itinerary from the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) to give its players a break after their tour of Australia, where a tri-series will run until mid-February.
Dalmiya said India will travel to Bangladesh for two Tests and three one-day internationals after the Pakistan tour as per the International Cricket Council's (ICC) calendar.
The Indian board also announced a triangular series between India, Pakistan and Australia to be held in Europe as preparation for the Champions Trophy in England in September.
"The tri-series will be held in either Holland, Ireland or Scotland," Dalmiya said.
The only match India and Pakistan have played in the last three years was at the 2003 World Cup in South Africa, where India won by six wickets.-Reuters
APP adds: The PCB will be sending its proposed schedule of international matches with India by Monday.
"Now we are in a position to send the proposed dates of the matches and the venues to BCCI by Monday," a PCB spokesman said on Sunday. He hoped that the BCCI will send the approval on the dates and venues of the matches by the weekend. The revised schedule also includes a three-day tour opener warm-up game.
