cricket

The Pakistan cricket team is administrated by the Pakistan Cricket Board and is a full member of the International Cricket Council with Test and one-day international status. Cricket in Pakistan has been played well before the first team was granted Test playing status. Their first match took place in Delhi against India in 1952 while their first international tour was to England in 1954. Down the years, Pakistan emerged as a formidable opposition winning the Cricket World Cup in 1992 and being runners-up in the 1999 edition of the same. The country has a history of producing several top-notch bowlers such as Fazal Mahmood, Sarfaraz Nawaz, Imran Khan, Abdul Qadir, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and Shoaib Akhtar. The likes of Hanif Mohammad, Saeed Anwar, Mohammad Yousuf, Inzamam-ul-Haq and Javed Miandad have stamped their authority with the willow for Pakistan as well. The 2007 ICC Cricket World Cup was one of the biggest upsets in World Cup history when Pakistan was knocked out of the competition in a shock defeat to Ireland. The next day, a greater tragedy befell the team when coach Bob Woolmer was found dead in his hotel room in Jamaica. The then skipper Inzamam-ul-Haq resigned from his duties and from one-day internationals subsequently. With a younger side, Pakistan began picking up the pieces and started making positive strides in the inaugural ICC World Twenty20 later that year. The team, however, had to contend with second place after losing to India in a nail-biting final. They compensated for this loss by winning the title in 2009 where they beat Sri Lanka in the finals. In the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup, Shahid Afridi led Pakistan to the semi-finals but the team lost to arch-rivals India in a nerve-wracking encounter which ultimately brought an end to their campaign. History was created in 2016 when Pakistan, under the captaincy of, Misbah, climbed up to the no. 1 spot in the Test rankings for the first time. It though was for a brief time only. They haven't quite maintained the same amount of form since the retirement of Misbah-ul-Haq and Younis Khan. A year later, they surprised everybody by lifting the Champions Trophy for the first time, beating their arch-rivals, India. Pakistan also became the no. 1 ranked T20I side in 2018. Pakistan are now in the transition mode under the leadership of Sarfraz Ahmed. They have struggled to emulate the form they showed in the Champions Trophy and their shock exit in the Super Fours of the 2018 Asia Cup was an example of that.