Pakistan will tour Zimbabwe for three Twenty20 matches and three ODIs between September 4 and October 5, Wilson Manase, the chairman of Zimbabwe Cricket, has confirmed. Pakistan are now eighth in the ODI rankings with 90 points, while West Indies are ninth with 88; the result of the Zimbabwe series will not affect Pakistan’s position.
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Zimbabwe Cricket had proposed to play a tri-series involving the West Indies instead of a bilateral series.
The tour also comes after Pakistan hosted Zimbabwe in May and June, the first visit to the militancy-hit South Asian country by a Test-playing team in six years.
The visit which was previously planned for August 17 till September 7 got deferred by “mutual agreement”, presumably because Pakistan did not want to risk their chances of qualification for the 2017 Champions Trophy.
Initially, Pakistan had agreed to play a limited-overs series with Zimbabwe in August as that was the only empty slot that they had.
The tour will start off with three T20Is starting from September 24, while the ODIs will be played after September 30.
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Asked what would happen if West Indies managed to squeeze in a short ODI series before the September 30th deadline, the board official said this was an internal matter of the two boards and Pakistan could not comment on it.
