Vin­ode Mam­chan

West In­dies will play Pak­istan in two T20 match­es in Flori­da, USA this March, in an ef­fort to con­tin­ue build­ing the game in the Unit­ed States.

The match­es are card­ed for March 25 and 26 and will be played at the Cen­tral Broward Re­gion­al Park in Fort Laud­erdale. This comes on the back of the suc­cess­ful two-match se­ries that was held be­tween the West In­dies and In­dia at the same venue last Au­gust.

West In­dies won the se­ries 1-0, af­ter tak­ing the first game by a soli­tary run and rain wash­ing out the sec­ond fix­ture. The venue was packed to ca­pac­i­ty for the two games and this has giv­en or­gan­is­ers the mo­ti­va­tion to stage more match­es in Flori­da.

Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) and the Pak­istan Crick­et Board (PCB) orig­i­nal­ly made a deal to play two T20 match­es in Pak­istan and then two in the Unit­ed States. CWI then de­cid­ed against send­ing the West In­dies team to Pak­istan for the two match­es, as they were not get­ting the go ahead from the West In­dies Play­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (WIPA). WIPA sought ad­vice from the Fed­er­a­tion of In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et As­so­ci­a­tions (FI­CA) and they were told the coun­try is not safe for for­eign­ers.