Australia yesterday arrived in Pakistan for their first cricket tour in 24 years — and into a high-security bubble that would envelop them throughout their six-week stay.
Senior batsman Steve Smith posted a picture on Twitter of the 35-member Australia tour party inside their charter flight’s cabin after it touched down in the capital, Islamabad. Local officials confirmed their arrival.
Pakistan have struggled to attract visiting sides since a fatal terror attack on the visiting Sri Lanka team’s bus in 2009. Australia pulled out of a tour five years earlier after a suicide blast at a Lahore church.
Photo: AFP
They last played in Pakistan in 1998, winning the three-Test series 1-0 and blanking the hosts in the three one-day internationals.
Having been forced to play their home games abroad — mostly in the United Arab Emirates — Pakistan appeared to have reassured international cricket authorities last year with New Zealand and England scheduled to tour.
The Black Caps hastily departed in September last year just minutes before their first match was due to start, citing security fears, and England postponed tours by their men’s and women’s teams soon after.
The decisions incensed Pakistan cricket authorities, who felt they had done everything possible to ensure safety and security.
They said that they are again leaving nothing to chance, with nearly 4,000 police and military personnel guarding the team hotel in Islamabad and the cricket stadium in the nearby garrison city o Rawalpindi.
“The squad will be given ‘head of state-level security,’” a spokesman for Pakistan’s interior ministry said.
“Such arrangements are only made for high-level foreign delegations, [and] the president and prime minister of Pakistan,” he added.
Roads would be blocked off when the Australians make the 15km commute, with their team bus to be shadowed by army helicopters.
Snipers would be positioned on buildings surrounding the stadium, while nearby shops and offices have been ordered to close on match days, the interior ministry said.
Similar arrangements would be in place for matches in Karachi and Lahore.
The Australians are to be confined to quarters for 24 hours after arrival for COVID-19 tests, before intense training ahead of the first Test on Friday.
“We’ve got to a place where everyone hopping on the plane is comfortable with where it’s all sitting,” Australian skipper Pat Cummins said ahead of the team’s departure from Sydney.
“It’s been a really thorough body of work that the security and the logistics teams have worked through,” he added.
More than half Pakistan’s 220 million people were not even born the last time Australia toured — the median age is 22.8 — but stadiums are expected to be packed.
The teams are to play three Tests, three one-day internationals and one Twenty20 match before the Australians depart on April 6.
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