International Cricket will once again return to the Pakistani soil when Sri Lanka's tour of Pakistan kicks off on September 27, 2019, in Karachi.

The first One-Day 50-over International match between these two sides will be played on Friday from 3:30 PM PKT onwards.

The tour will start with a three-match ODI series before moving into the three-match T20I series. All three ODIs will be played at the National Stadium in Karachi. After the first match on September 27, the teams will be playing the rest two games on September 29 and October 3. Once the ODI series finishes, the two sides will move to Lahore where they will be playing a three-match T20I series starting from October 5.

The Pakistan players are happy to host an international team visiting their country to play a bilateral series after a long time.

CricBuzz quoted Pakistan opener Fakhar Zaman as saying, "It is very disappointing to play 'home' matches in other countries. It is always a privilege for us to play cricket in front of our home crowd, so we all are ecstatic to have this opportunity."

PTV Sports to telecast in Pakistan

PTV Sports and Ten Sports will broadcast the matches of this tour in Pakistan. Sony Six will telecast the matches Live in India. In Sri Lanka, SLRC (Channel Eye) will broadcast the game live.

BT Sport will provide television coverage of the matches in the United Kingdom. In the United States of America, Willow TV will broadcast the series.

SonyLiv will provide online streaming of the matches in the Indian subcontinent at Sonyliv.com.

Sarfaraz retained as captain and Mohammad Nawaz makes a return

Pakistan has retained their skipper, Sarfaraz Ahmed at the helm of things.

Babar Azam will now be his deputy after Shoaib Malik retired from international cricket. Mohammad Hafeez has not been picked in the side after an average World Cup performance.

Shaheen Afridi and Hasan Ali will miss their series due to injury to both of them.

Mohammad Nawaz and Iftikhar Ahmed have been recalled into the ODI squad. The rest of the team remains to be same as earlier.

An uphill task in front of the inexperienced Sri Lankan squad

After many senior Sri Lankan pros decided to opt-out of this tour, the board had no choice but appointed Lahiru Thirimanne as the ODI skipper. Regular captain Dimuth Karunaratne, Angelo Mathews, Suranga Lakmal, Lasith Malinga and many others had said no to this tour due to the security concerns. Sri Lanka has sent an inexperienced side for this tour as there was no choice in front of them.

Stats suggest Pakistan has an upper hand as they have won the last six matches against Sri Lanka. In fact, they have won nine of the last 11 ODIs.
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED