PAK vs AUS: Police conduct extensive search operation in Karachi ahead of second Test

On the back of the recent bomb blasts in Peshawar, the police and concerned authorities are ensuring such an incident does not derail Australia’s ongoing historic cricket tour to Pakistan. The two teams will be now travelling to Karachi for the second Test of the three-match series.

The police along with Sindh Rangers undertook an extensive joint search operation across Karachi including the areas surrounding National Stadium, where the second Test will be played. The operation was carried out to review the security measures in place for the Australian Cricket Team as per a spokesperson of the Sindh Rangers, reported Radio Pakistan.

At the time of the bombings at a mosque in Peshawar, the Australian team was in Pakistan playing the first Test at Rawalpindi which is roughly 200 km away from Peshawar.

Australia’s tour to Pakistan is their first since 1999. The south-east Asian country has struggled to host their home games in the country due to the attacks in 2009 that were targeted on the Sri Lankan cricket team which was touring the country at that time. The team was attacked when commuting in their team bus to the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore from their hotel.

Since the unfortunate incident, international teams refrained from touring Pakistan with the PCB even losing the co-hosting rights of World Cup in 2011. However, in the recent few years, international cricket has slowly returned to the country. Notably, one of the first major teams to have agreed to travel to Pakistan was New Zealand for their away series last year.

However, they ended up aborting the tour and leaving the country just before the first match of the series after the team reportedly received threats via email. A similar incident happened with the currently touring Australian contingent when one of their players, Ashton Agar’s wife, received death threats on Instagram, which were later discarded as not being a real threat or anything posing risk by the concerned authorities.