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Eng land's Cricket Team arrived in Islamabad early Sunday to play its first Test series in Pakistan since 2005. Ben Stokes-led England will kick off the tour in Rawalpindi, which will host the first Test next Thursday. The second match of the red-ball series will be played at Multan from December 9 before England round off the tour with the final Test at Karachi from December 17-21. 

Prior to the World Cup 2022 in Australia, England had played a seven-match T20I series in Pakistan, where it went down to the wire  with the visitors winning the series 4-3 eventually . England was due to tour Pakistan last year before the T20 World Cup in the United Arab Emirates.  However, ECB abandoned the tour due to security concerns after New Zealand had aborted its tour to Pakistan just minutes before the toss in the first ODI at Rawalpindi. 

"With what happened with Imran Khan recently, there was a little bit of concern, but we have Reg Dickason, who has been the security man for many years with England, and we have left it in his capable hands," Stokes said in Abu Dhabi last Friday where the team trained for a week before flying out to Pakistan. 

Even Mark Wood expressed his concerns over the Pakistan tour after Imran Khan was shot during a nationwide protest. Notably, Pakistan's former captain and Ex-Prime Minister Imran Khan recently met with the Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Ramiz Raja and British High Commissioner in Lahore and assured the officials that his protest against the government would not disturb the England Cricket team's tour to Pakistan.

With foreign teams reluctant to tour Pakistan due to security concerns, Pakistan had hosted England twice in a Test series in UAE over the last 17 years. The three-Test series will be part of the World Test Championship, where Pakistan is in fifth place while England is in seventh. Pakistan must win the three-match Test series to keep its hopes alive for the successive final.