'Would love to tour Pakistan' - Joe Root expresses desire to tour Pakistan ahead of 2022

England skipper Joe Root has recently expressed his desire to tour Pakistan for cricketing action but is unsure due to a hectic schedule ahead of 2022. The year 2009 saw a disturbing incident that led to stopping cricket events in Pakistan, armed militants attacked the Sri Lanka team bus. Post this, the green team has been playing the majority of their home matches in UAE, but Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, and West Indies have toured Pakistan post that horrific incident.

However, the right-handed batsman stated that he “would love” to tour Pakistan in the coming times if fixtures and schedule permits. Both the nations are currently locking horns in Test series taking place at Southampton, England where hosts are marching forward with 1-0 lead.

After the 2nd Test ended in a tie, the top-order batsman told reporters, “I’d love to go and visit Pakistan. It would be a great opportunity to go and play there personally. Unfortunately, it’s not my decision to make but it looks a wonderful country to go and play cricket in.”

Test cricket marked its resumption in Pakistan last December where Sri Lankans were the visitors. Also, at the starting of the month, PCB chief Wasim Khan threw light on the fact that England could tour here before 2022 but nothing is fixed so far.

It means a lot for players to play in Pakistan: Joe Root

“You could see the emotion of everyone back in Pakistan when Test cricket was there at the back end of last year,” said Root. “Also, speaking to a few of the players, how much it meant to them as well and they really appreciated being able to play back in Pakistan too.”

In the current campaign between the two nations, the 3rd and final Test is set to commence this Friday at Southampton and after this series, both teams will get one on one with each other in the T20I series scheduled at the end of this month. The events are being conducted under the bio-secure bubble that restricts the player from moving out of the set boundaries.

With both Pakistan and West Indies moving to Britain for the action which was hard hit by COVID-19, ECB has been spared from an estimated loss of 280 million pounds which could have been the scene if matches got wiped out.