Cricket’s Return In Pakistan Cemented As Australia Ends 24-Year Tour Drought

The impeachment of Bill Clinton. Britney Spears released her debut single Baby one more time. After winning his sixth NBA championship, Michael Jordan was the most popular athlete in the US.

Ok, some things remain the same. If October 1998 feels like a different world, well it was more than 23 years ago – eight months later Australia emerging star all-rounder Cameron Green was born.

Australia this weekend will tour Pakistan for the first time since their famous triumph in October 1998 best remembered for then skipper Mark Taylor equalling legendary Sir Donald Bradman’s mark of 334 in the second Test.

This is obviously a historic tour and a major moment for international cricket’s return to Pakistan due to improved security. After 9/11, there had been reticence by some cricket nations to play in Pakistan with Australia’s tour in late 2002 played in Sri Lanka and UAE after a bus bombing earlier in the year in Karachi.

But cricket was still played in Pakistan during the 2000s with England and even India touring twice each. But the harrowing terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan team in Lahore in 2009 meant Pakistan had to become cricket nomads and play mostly away for the next decade mainly in the sterile surrounds of the UAE, which attracted little crowds and was a huge financial burden for the Pakistan Cricket Board.

A generation of cricket crazy Pakistani fans were deprived of watching their heroes play in person apart from occasional limited-overs series. It was a travesty for players in this era who couldn’t play at home even though a resilient Pakistan carved a formidable record in the UAE.

And it also meant great players from other countries were not tested in the challenging conditions of Pakistan. For example, England great Alastair Cook, who played 161 Tests, never played there.

But in late 2019 Test cricket momentously returned to Pakistan when Sri Lanka, quite fittingly, played matches to end the decade-long drought. After a drip of international matches – along with the formation of the Pakistan Super League – since 2015, Pakistan had now returned permanently home.

A straight shooting Ehsan Mani, then PCB boss, at the time said Pakistan would no longer host matches in the UAE in a not so subtle salvo at powers Australia and England, who had still been wavering.

Unfortunately, the Covid-19 pandemic halted the momentum and Pakistan has only since played two Tests at home against South Africa 12 months ago. There have been hiccups in the interim with New Zealand quitting their tour at the last minute late last year due to a security threat and England followed suit shortly after in a widely derided decision that contributed to ECB chair Ian Watmore’s shock departure.

It appeared England just didn’t have the appetite to make the venture and there were fears Australia would do likewise having had a knack of shortchanging smaller nations previously.

But perhaps taking heed of England’s flak plus trying to improve its own reputation, Cricket Australia has kept its promise to cement Pakistan’s homecoming. Unless something dramatic happens in the meantime, England have committed to touring Pakistan for a Test and T20I tour later in the year.

Unfortunately the other member of the so-called ‘Big Three’, India, refuse to play Test matches at all against their foe due to political differences.

Right now, finally, Australia resumes playing in traditionally difficult terrain for them as a fascinating three-Test series starts on March 4 with much anticipation on how the tourists will fare in conditions they’ve never experienced.

“We don’t really know what to expect over there,” Australia captain Pat Cummins said. “Subcontinent Tests can be played quickly or slowly, but think for a lot of this group, we haven’t played a lot of cricket overseas, so if we want to be No. 1 in the world we have to have a really good showing on these subcontinent tours.”

Much like their previous tour in 1998, Australia’s players and staff will be surrounded by heavy security but that’s not fazing them. “It’s been a really thorough body of work that the security and the logistics teams have worked through,” Cummins said.

It will be fascinating to see how Australia adjusts to the new surrounds, a task made more difficult by playing no warm-up matches. But, finally, we will get answers to questions we thought were never going to be asked. Can Steve Smith dominate in Pakistan like in India? Can Australia’s star quicks reverse swing the ball to the same mastery as their counterparts? How will spinner Nathan Lyon fare in diverse conditions varying from rank turners to roads?

Ultimately, Mani’s unyielding words have paid dividends. And cricket fans are richer for it.