Dubai to host its second Day-Night Test during SL visit

Dubai to host its second Day-Night Test during SL visit

Sri Lanka will become the latest team to join the Day-Night Test bandwagon after the Pakistan Cricket Board confirmed that the second of their two-Test series against the team from the island nation will be played under lights in Dubai between October 6 and 10. The Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi will host the opener from September 28.

Dubai, which made it's pink-ball Test debut last year during the Pakistan-Windies game, will join the Adelaide Oval in having hosted two Day-Night Tests, although the Australian venue is pencilled into host its third such game during the forthcoming Ashes series.

The two Tests will be followed by a five-match One-Day International series and a three-match T20I faceoff. The last of the T20Is, scheduled for October 29, is slated to be played at Lahore "subject to security clearance."

International cricket returns to Pakistan later this week when a World XI side-led by Faf du Plessis will partake in a three-match T20I series against the hosts. Should Sri Lanka successfully complete their one-off assignment in Pakistan, it'll serve as a major shot in the arm for PCB's efforts to bring back international cricket to the nation after a terror attack on the Sri Lankan team bus in 2009 forced them to change home base to UAE. Zimbabwe played a short series amid high security in 2015 but top cricketing action was not forthcoming until the PSL 2017 final was staged in Lahore earlier this year.

"I am keen to take my team to Pakistan," SLC president Thilanga Sumathipala had said at the Asian Cricket Council AGM. "We have had our security experts visit and make an assessment, and things look positive with things improving all over the country and especially Lahore being cleared."

Full Schedule:

September 28 - October 2: 1st Test, Abu Dhabi

October 6 - October 10: 2nd Test, Dubai [D/N]

October 13 - 1st ODI, Dubai

October 16 - 2nd ODI, Abu Dhabi

October 18 - 3rd ODI, Abu Dhabi

October 20 - 4th ODI, Sharjah

October 23 - 5th ODI, Sharjah

October 26 - 1st T20I, Abu Dhabi

October 27 - 2nd T20I, Abu Dhabi

October 29 - 3rd T20I, Lahore*

* Subject to security clearance