PESHAWAR
\nPakistan will make a trip Down Under later in the year to take on Australia for the Benaud-Qadir Trophy. The three Tests \u2013 part of the third World Test Championship cycle \u2013 will be played at Perth, Melbourne and Sydney in December and January.
\nThe tour will open at the Perth Stadium on December 14 and it will mark the first instance of Pakistan playing a Test at the venue. The two teams will face off in the Boxing Day Test at the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground from December 26-30 and the third and final match will be played at the Sydney Cricket Ground from January 3, 2024. Pakistan have played 10 Tests at the MCG and eight at the SCG \u2013 at both venues they have won two matches each, said a PCB release issued here Sunday.
\nIn the lead-up to the series, Pakistan will play a four-day warm-up to acclimatize to the conditions Down Under. This will be Pakistan captain Babar Azam\u2019s third Test tour of Australia. The prolific stroke-maker previously landed on Australian soil in December 2016, under Misbah-ul-Haq\u2019s captaincy, and November 2019, when Azhar Ali was the captain of the side.
\nThe right-hander has 278 runs \u2013 including a century \u2013 in five Tests. On the 2019 tour, Babar scored a century in the second innings in the first Test in Brisbane and followed it up with a 97 at Adelaide.
\nNaseem Shah made his Pakistan debut at Brisbane in November 2019 and since then has evolved as a mainstay in Pakistan\u2019s bowling line-up across all formats. The right-arm speedster has 80 wickets in 42 matches.
\nPakistan last toured Australia for the ICC Men\u2019s T20 World Cup and finished as the finalists. The Benaud-Qadir Trophy was launched in 2022 when Australia arrived in Pakistan after 16 years for a three-Test series. Pat Cummin\u2019s side bagged the first iteration as they bagged the series 1-0 after defeating Pakistan in Lahore in the third and final Test.
\nSchedule:
\nDec 14-18: First Test, Perth Stadium
\nDec 26-30: Second Test, Melbourne Cricket Ground
\nJan 3-7: Third Test, Sydney Cricket Ground<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PESHAWAR Pakistan will make a trip Down Under later in the year to take on Australia for the Benaud-Qadir Trophy. The three Tests \u2013 part of the third World Test Championship cycle \u2013 will be played at Perth, Melbourne and Sydney in December and January. The tour will open at the Perth Stadium on December […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285413,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-331291","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports"},"yoast_head":"\n