ISLAMABAD:Pakistan’s cricket chiefs hope the country can host a full series by 2020, after a successful tour by the West Indies sparked hopes of an international revival.
The three-match series against the World Twenty20 champions, staged in the once militancy-wracked port city of Karachi, was accompanied by a wave of optimism, with enthusiastic fans braving heavy security checks to express their gratitude to the West Indies for the visit which ended Tuesday.
Last month Karachi also hosted the final of the popular Pakistan Super League, the biggest cricket event in the city since a 2009 attack on the visiting Sri Lankan team in Lahore drove international cricket from the country.
Pakistan was forced to host its international fixtures in the United Arab Emirates. But with security dramatically improving in the last three years, the Pakistan Cricket Board has been taking “gradual steps” to bring them back, PCB chairman Najam Sethi said.
“They are bearing positive results,” he told AFP.