Coach Brendon McCullum said England are “realistic” about the challenge in Pakistan, despite their recent success here and the hosts’ awful run of form.
England won 3-0 in Pakistan in 2022, the first time any visiting side had achieved such a clean sweep in this country. That series forms part of Pakistan’s 10-match winless run on home soil.
The tourists are without injured captain Ben Stokes for the first Test in Multan, beginning on Monday (06:00 BST), and only one of their trio of pace bowlers – Chris Woakes – has played a Test in Asia before.
As has become the norm for England, they have not played a warm-up game, with the home summer only finishing last weekend at the conclusion of the white-ball series against Australia.
“We go in with high hopes,” McCullum told BBC Sport. “There will be no excuses whatsoever if we don’t get where we need to get.
“We’re also realistic this is going to be a tough series, because Pakistan in their own conditions, as history would suggest, it’s a tough ask.”
Either side of a 10-year hiatus from playing on home soil following an attack by gunmen on the Sri Lanka team in 2009, Pakistan lost only two out of 13 home series.
But a 1-0 defeat by Australia in early 2022 began their winless run, the second-longest they have ever gone without a win in a home Test.
England can expect different conditions to their last trip, when the weather was cooler and the pitches flat. Now, temperatures in Multan for the first two matches in the three-Test series are around 36 degrees and the pitch is expected to be slightly green.
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