Lahore will welcome England after 19 years during Pakistan’s biggest World Test Championship home assignment of this cycle after the English home international summer of 2024. Ben Stokes’s team will play a three match Test series in October 2024 in Pakistan. England whitewashed Pakistan 3-0 in December 2022 during their previous visit, a highly surprising result given England hadn’t won an away Test Match in Asia vs Pakistan since 2000 prior to the tour and only managed two victories from 24 against Pakistan in Test Matches played on Pakistan soil prior to that tour too.
However, there was no Test Match in Lahore during the previous tour due to smog and fog issues in December. But with this tour happening in the earlier part of the Pakistani home international season of 2024-25 which is jam packed with three Test series vs Bangladesh, England and West Indies, an ODI triangular series involving New Zealand and South Africa and a Champions Trophy, Lahore is all set to host England in whites again. Lahore did host three Twenty20 internationals against Jos Buttler’s eventual T20 World Cup winners in September 2022 during a seven match series, of which the final three were staged in Lahore.
Lahore has only hosted one of 13 Tests played in Pakistan since Test Cricket resumed in Pakistan in late 2019 which was against Pat Cummins’s eventual World Test Championship winners, a Test Match they won which helped them seal the series and which proved a key component in their qualification for the showpiece Test fixture at The Oval in June of this year.
Michael Vaughan’s England side were handsomely defeated by Pakistan the last time they played a Test Match in Lahore in December 2005 where they experienced an innings defeat in the third and final Test of the series. That proved to be England’s last Test Match in Pakistan for a further 17 years.
Talking of which, it has been nearly a year to the day where England played their first Test in Pakistan for 17 years when they racked up 506/4 on day 1 in Rawalpindi, a record for number of runs scored on the opening day of a Test Match. This was on the opening day of December 2022.
On a side note, there are currently discussions of reducing the 2024 Test series from three Tests to two and playing some ODIs as Champions Trophy preparation which will be held in Pakistan in the same home season, especially after both teams concerned failed to make the semi finals of the recently concluded 2023 ICC Cricket World Cup in India. And will be hoping for an improved showing in the next major global ODI event.
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