The cricket boards of both countries announced on Monday that New Zealand will tour Pakistan twice next season, including one to make up for a cancelled tour earlier this year.
Due to security concerns, New Zealand’s limited-overs tour of Pakistan was cancelled in September, just before the toss in the first one-day international was scheduled to take place in Rawalpindi.
England, following New Zealand’s lead, cancelled a short tour to Pakistan in October, just before the Twenty20 World Cup.
The cancellations dealt a major setback to Pakistan’s hopes of hosting regular international cricket matches, infuriating the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), whose chairman Ramiz Raja claimed that the “Western bloc” had “used and binned” Pakistan.
Raja and Martin Snedden, his New Zealand equivalent, met in Dubai last month to develop bridges between the boards.
In December 2022, New Zealand will visit Pakistan for two test matches as part of the World Test Championship, as well as three One Day Internationals (ODIs) that will count towards qualification for the 2023 World Cup in India.
New Zealand will tour again in April 2023, this time for five One-Day Internationals and five Twenty20 matches. Dates and locations have yet to be decided.
“Our respective chairmen … had very fruitful and constructive discussions while in Dubai, further strengthening the bond between the two organisations,” New Zealand Cricket chief executive David White said in a statement. “It’s good to be going back.”
The exact dates of the matches would be finalised later.
“I am pleased with the outcomes of our discussions and negotiations, and thank Martin Snedden and his board for their understanding and support,” Raja said in a statement.
“This reflects the strong, cordial and historic relations the two boards have and reconfirms Pakistan’s status as an important member of the cricket fraternity.”
Between March 2022 and April 2023, Pakistan will host eight test matches, 14 one-day internationals, and 13 Twenty20 matches against Australia, the West Indies, England, and New Zealand.
Since an armed attack on the Sri Lanka team bus in Lahore in 2009, which killed six policemen and two civilians, international teams have mainly avoided Pakistan. For more than six years, Pakistan’s national teams were obliged to play “home” matches outside the country.
Pakistan trounced the West Indies in a three-match T20 series earlier this month. Due to a coronavirus epidemic on the West Indies team, a three-match ODI series between the two teams has been postponed until next June.
