The Australian Cricket Team is in Pakistan for a historic tour. The importance of the tour lies in the fact that it probably marks the return of the big names of cricket to Pakistan. After the 2009 incident in Lahore, where there was an armed attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team bus, the big nations of the Cricketing world have avoided Pakistani soil. Teams like Afghanistan and Kenya toured Pakistan in February 2013 and December 2014 respectively, followed by a tour by Zimbabwe in 2015.
The cricketing fraternity was in hope that Zimbabwe’s tour would be bringing mainstream cricket back to Pakistan, which was not the case. Recently, South Africa and Bangladesh also visited the country but PCB could not bring back international cricket to Pakistan. New Zealand visited the country last year but pulled out at the last moment, leaving Pakistan Cricket Board in a soup.
With Australia touring Pakistan for the ODI and Test series, the long wait of 15 years for Pakistani fans to witness quality international cricket is believed to be ending. The first test of the tour is taking place at Rawalpindi, where Pakistan find themselves comfortably positioned in the first innings.
While the fans might have been pleased with the hosts’ performance till now in the first test, news of blasts at a crowded mosque near Peshawar is not something the fans would have expected. Reportedly the distance of the blasts from the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium is about 170 kilometres.
While cricket in Pakistan is slowly trying to get back to the mainstream, incidents like this might hamper the prospects of future tours by the other Test-playing nations. So, the fans would hope that the news does not impact the Australian tour in a great way.
