England agree provisional dates for India tour

England will play three Tests and seven one-day internationals on their tour of India next year, after the provisional dates for the series were agreed by the England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).

The agreed outline programme, drawn up by the two boards, provisionally has the Test series being played between March 8 and 29 inclusive, with the one-dayers due to take place between April 4 and 22.

The ECB said it had been told by the BCCI that venues for all tour matches would be confirmed by mid-October. England, who play the final Test of the Ashes series at The Oval next week, travel to Pakistan before the end of this year for a Test and one-day series.

England will play three Tests - in Multan, Faisalabad and Lahore - and five one-day internationals during the tour from October 26 to December 21. But they objected to playing a Test in Karachi on security grounds, opting for a one-day international instead, and there will be no match in the north-western city of Peshawar due to its proximity to the violence-prone border with Afghanistan.