PAKISTAN CRICKET TEAM

The Pakistan National Cricket Team is an international cricket team representing Pakistan. It is administrated by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB). Pakistan is a full member of the International Cricket Council with Test and One Day International status.

Before the independence of Pakistan, cricket was played before the first Pakistan national team was granted test match playing status. Documentation and archives show that during the 18th century, cricket was played on the western side of India and many successful Indian cricketers played for the English cricket team.^[2] It was not until July 28, 1952 that Pakistan started playing test match cricket. Their first match took place in Delhi against India on October of the same year. Their first international tour was to England during 1954. Over the half century, Pakistan has become one of the most challenging and unpredictable teams in the world, the team won the 1992 World Cup and were runners up in the 1999 World Cup. The country has produced several world-class players.^[3]

As of October 2007, the Pakistani team has played 332 Test matches, winning 30.29%, losing 26.76% and drawing 42.94% of its games.^[4] The team is ranked sixth in the ICC Test Championship and fourth place in the ICC ODI Championship.^[5] On August 28, 2006, Pakistan won its debut Twenty20 International match in England and were runners up in the inaugural ICC World Twenty20 in September 2007. They are the current ICC World Twenty20 champions, beating Sri Lanka on 21 June 2009 by eight wickets.