Pakistan to Start Practice on Monday

The Pakistan cricket team is set to start their practice in Bangladesh on Monday after all of their players and support staff came back negative in Covid-19 test.

The visiting team will play a three-match T20 International and two-match Test series in Bangladesh. The two Tests are the part of the second edition of the World Test Championship (WTC).

Pakistan will start the practice sans their captain Babar Azam and senior player Shoaib Malik, who are on holiday in Dubai. They will join the side on November 16, the Pakistan Cricket Official informed.

Even though Pakistan lost the semifinal game of the T20 World Cup to Australia despite being touted as red-hot favourite, their cricketer Iftikhar Ahmed claimed, the spirits are too high here.

Iftikhar also praised Bangladeshi fans, saying that their passion for cricket would make the series enjoyable.

"The spirits are too high here. This is my second visit to Bangladesh and they are cricket-loving nation. We have received warm welcome here at the Airport yesterday," Iftikhar said in a recorded video message.

"We are starting our training sessions from tomorrow and I would like to continue my good form here too. Doing well in PSL and National T20 has given me a lot of confidence."

This is Pakistan's first bilateral series against Bangladesh after 2015 even though they last came in Bangladesh in 2016 for Asia Cup T20 tournament.

During the only T20 match of the series in 2015 and Asia Cup T20 in 2016, Bangladesh beat Pakistan and those were two times, they could beat Pakistan in this format. Overall the two teams played 12 matches and Pakistan won the rest of the 10 matches.

Pakistan will be playing the first of the three T20Is against Bangladesh on November 19 at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur. The second and third T20Is will be on November 20 and 22 respectively at the same venue.

All the T20Is will be starting from 2:00pm as per Bangladesh Standard Time (BST).

The teams will then travel to Chattogram to play the first Test from November 26 at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium. They will then return to Dhaka for the final fixture of the tour, the second Test which will be played from December 4 in Mirpur.

Members of Pakistan T20I squad: Babar Azam (captain), Shadab Khan (vice-captain), Asif Ali, Fakhar Zaman, Haider Ali, Haris Rauf, Hasan Ali, Iftikhar Ahmed, Imad Wasim, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Rizwan (wicketkeeper), Mohammad Wasim Jnr, Sarfaraz Ahmed (wicketkeeper), Shaheen Shah Afridi, Shahnawaz Dahani, Shoaib Malik and Usman Qadir.