Zimbabwe Touch Down in Pakistan for First International Series in Six Years

The Zimbabwe cricket team landed in Pakistan in the early hours of Tuesday, becoming the first Test-playing nation to visit the militancy-wracked South Asian country in six years, Lahore airport officials said.

#PAKvZIM We are in! #cricketthewinner @263Chat @ZiFMStereo @StarfmZimbabwe @ZBCNewsonline pic.twitter.com/N6WLM07yrv

- Zimbabwe Cricket (@ZimCricketv) May 19, 2015

Zimbabwe are set to play two T20s and three ODIs in a mini-series under high security involving 6,000 police and aerial surveillance by commandos on rooftops and helicopters. (Zimbabwe Abandon, Then Reconsider, Tour of Pakistan)

The tour is a first by a full ICC member since Sri Lanka visited in 2009, when their team bus was attacked by RPG and machine-gun wielding militants, with eight people killed and seven players wounded. (Pakistan drop Saeed Ajmal, Recall Shoaib Malik, Mohammad Shami for T20s vs Zimbabwe)

Forced to host home games in neutral venues like the United Arab Emirates, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) estimates it has lost $120 million in TV rights and extra overheads. (Tickets on Sale for Zimbabwe Series)

Even hosting Zimbabwe will cost the PCB more than $1 million, half of which is for the visitors' fees and expenses. Not much of the outlay will be recouped by sponsorships and gate proceeds. ('Horrors of 2009 terrorist attack still haunt me')

An incident-free series is seen as crucial to Pakistan's hopes of ending its sporting isolation. (Pakistan welcome Zimbabwe as international cricket returns)

But risks remain high, and the massacre of 45 minority Shiites in an attack on a bus in Karachi last week nearly prompted Zimbabwe to pull out at the last minute.