Australia to tour Pakistan with full-strength squad, confirms chief selector George Bailey

Australian chief selector George Bailey has confirmed that no player has backed out from traveling to Pakistan in March. He also mentioned that the selection committee will like to pick the squad on the basis of managing the workload of the players.

Australia recently played the Ashes against England where the English team lost the series by a 4-0 margin. The Australian team last traveled to Pakistan in 1999 under the captaincy of Mark Taylor. Both the teams played three ODIs and three Test matches on the tour. Australia completed the whitewash in both series.

Bailey mentioned that he himself looked at the security arrangements and called them very robust. He also announced that both the boards are still working on a few minor details and the squad announcement will be done once everything is sorted.

“I believe the boards are still working through some of the minor details around that tour, so once that gets the formal tick of approval then we’ll announce the squad post that, but we’re reasonably well down the track,” Bailey said as quoted by India Today.

“The two (security) briefings that I’ve sat in on, the security sounds very, very robust.”

Here are the details of the Australia tour to Pakistan:

Australia is scheduled to play three Test matches, three ODIs, and one T20I on the tour to Pakistan. The first Test matches will be played on March 3 at the National Stadium, Karachi followed by the second Test on March 12 at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium, Rawalpindi. The final Test as well as all the limited-overs games will be played at the Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore on March 21.