Sri Lanka has shown its willingness to send its cricket team to Pakistan later this year, a senior official of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has told DawnNews.

Top-level international cricket teams have avoided visiting Pakistan due to precarious security situation ever since March 2009 when visiting Sri Lankan cricket squad was attacked by terrorists in Lahore. As a result, Pakistan since then have played their home series at the neutral venues of the UAE. Only Zimbabwe, a second-tier Test-playing nation, toured Pakistan for a short limited-overs series in 2015.

Chances of international cricket’s return to Pakistan got a major boost in March this year when the high-profile final of Pakistan Super League (PSL) T20 tournament — featuring several foreign cricketers — was staged in Lahore.

Talking to DawnNews, chairman of PCB executive committee Najam Sethi said Sri Lankan cricket board has signalled to send its team to Pakistan.

“Yes, Sri Lanka [cricket board] has shown the willingness to send its team to Pakistan on some condition which we will discuss in the next board of governors meeting before arriving at a decision in this regard,” Sethi told DawnNews.

“PSL has paved the way for the return of international cricket to Pakistan. Staging the PSL final [held in Lahore] was our first step in this regard. The tour of a World XI side to our country [expected in September this year] will be the second step while the [expected] visit of Sri Lankan team will be the third step and so on,” he added.

According to sources, the PCB expects the West Indies team to tour Pakistan in early 2018.

And if all goes according to the plan, Sethi hopes more foreign teams will visit.

“Organising PSL final successfully in Lahore was a massive breakthrough for us and we hope that if we host World X1 and Sri Lanka smoothly, more teams will tour Pakistan from next year,” Sethi said.