Pakistan, England, Sri Lanka: Tri-series begins today in Rawalpindi
LAHORE: The seven-match One-Day International tri-nation series will begin today at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium.
England will play their first match on 20th October against hosts, while they will face Sri Lanka on 22nd October.
The action will move to Lahore for the last four matches including the 31st October final between the two best teams. Pakistan will be led by Shaheen Shah Afridi, who has so far captained the nation in 11 ODIs winning seven, while Harry Brook will be in-charge of England and Kusal Mendis will be leading Sri Lanka.
The ODI tri-series will be fourth such series featuring on Pakistan soil after it first hosted Australia and South in 1994, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe in 2004 and New Zealand and South Africa in 2025.
Pakistan’s ODI squad assembled in Islamabad on Wednesday and trained for the three days leading up to the series opener, while Sri Lanka’s ODI players arrived in the capital on 12th October and the team trained for the first time on 14th October.
England arrived on 16th October and will have the chance to fine tune their preparations through three training sessions before their first game.
On the head-to-head front, Pakistan has won 96 ODI matches against Sri Lanka having played them 160 times in the format. One game was tied and four ended in no results. Against England, Pakistan have played 92 ODIs and won 32 as three ended in no result.
Pakistan has won three out of their last four ODI series having beaten South Africa 2-1, Sri Lanka 3-0 and Australia 2-1. The 2-1 loss against Bangladesh came in a way series. England is coming into the series on hot streak of three back-to-back ODI series wins against Sri Lanka and India.
Sri Lanka won the three-match ODI series against West Indies 1-0 and went down against England.
Babar Azam, Joe Root and Kusal Mendis will be the batters to watch out for in the series as all three have scored lots of runs for their respective teams over the last one decade. Razaullah and Saad Baig are two uncapped players in Pakistan squad.
Shaheen Shah Afridi, Pakistan captain said, “We are excited to begin a busy One-Day Cricket season at our home and against two very good teams. The tri-series will be highly competitive given the presence of a number of skilful and talented cricketers across the three teams. As captain I’m looking forward to give my players enough backing and support to get the best out on the field. We had the opportunity to train for three consecutive days and that will hold us in good stead when we take on both Sri Lanka and England in a space of three days before moving to Lahore.”
He said, “Our squad comprises of young and exciting players along with some really experienced ones and that will allow us to challenge the opposition in various phases of a 50-over game eventually turning them into positive results overall for Pakistan.”
Harry Brook, England captain said, “This will be a massive challenge the play against two really good teams in different conditions to what we are used to at home and in front of great fans in Pakistan. We want to be a team that adapts to conditions and can find different ways to win and this series provides a perfect opportunity to try and do that. We’ve been able to do that in our past few series where we won in Sri Lanka and then the pitches were very different when we beat both India and Sri Lanka at home. Both of those series went to a deciding game, and we won, which is a good habit to get into. To have a chance to potentially play in a final in this series gives us another opportunity to test ourselves in that sort of situation, but we know we’ll have to play extremely well to get there.”
Kusal Mendis, Sri Lanka Captain said, “Our team is looking forward to this tri-series, and happy to compete with two good teams. We as a team take every series and tournament that comes our way to compete at the highest level and reach our desired goals.”
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