New Zealand refuse to tour Pakistan

New Zealand Cricket has refused to tour Pakistan for a T20 international series that was expected to be held later this year.

This would have been their first tour of Pakistan in 15 years, but it won’t be happening, said an official from New Zealand Cricket. "At the end of the day it came down to following the advisory and the security reports we'd obtained." New Zealand Cricket chairman Greg Barclay told NEWSHUB.

Kiwis are scheduled to play against the Green Shirts’ at their ‘adopted home ground’ of United Arab Emirates in October. Three Tests, three One Day Internationals and three Twenty20 matches will be held.

The Pakistan Cricket Board officials had hoped to convince the Black Caps to move the T20 series in Pakistan after successfully hosting West Indies for three-match T20 series in Karachi.

"There's no doubt they [Pakistan Cricket Board] are disappointed. I think they saw a tour by a country like New Zealand as being a great precedent for them to start to build an international programme back in Pakistan,” Barclay continued.

"So they're disappointed but they're good guys, we get on really well with Pakistan, and I think they're fully accepting of the decision that we've reached."

New Zealand last visited Pakistan in 2003, a year after a bomb blast outside the team's hotel in Karachi ended their tour prematurely.

In April, West Indies became the first major side to tour Pakistan for a series since 2009, when a terrorist attack on the visiting Sri Lanka team triggered a drought of international cricket in the country. Sri Lanka returned in 2017 to play a T20I match in Lahore – the third and final match of the T20 series which was played in UAE.