Canada to host Twenty20 tri-series in August

Canada will host a Twenty20 tri-series featuring Pakistan, West Indies and Bangladesh from August 13 to 16 and all the matches will be played in Toronto. The tournament, which was organised by the PCB to fill up its calendar after the postponement of their home series against Australia, had initially faced problems with the backing out of the primary sponsors, but the board has managed to bring in a Pakistan-based business house to finance the event.

"The proposed tournament in Canada may have run into major problems after the previous sponsor backed out of their commitment," Shafqat Naghmi, the chief operating officer of the PCB, told the News. "But we've got new sponsors and hopefully the tournament will go ahead according to schedule."

Naghmi said the board had also received a guarantee from the new sponsors for Pakistan's participation for the tournament. This will the first time in close to nine years that Pakistan will be playing in Canada: they had beaten West Indies 3-0 in September, 1999. Prior to that, they had played an annual ODI series against India from 1996 to 1998, winning on two occasions.