Smog forces Pakistan's second Test against Sri Lanka out of Lahore to Rawalpindi

Pakistan's second Test against Sri Lanka has been moved out of Lahore to Rawalpindi after smog pushed the city's air into the worst band on the index

The Pakistan Cricket Board confirmed the change on Tuesday. The match was scheduled for the Gaddafi Stadium from 17 to 21 November, and it will now be played at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium across those same five days.

Board spokesperson Amir Mir said the decision had been taken in view of the prevailing weather conditions and rising smog levels in Lahore. The board's own statement was more guarded, saying only that the Test had been relocated because of prevailing weather conditions.

The effect is that the whole two-match series now belongs to Rawalpindi, where the first Test reached its third day on Wednesday.

A venue change that leaves the dates alone

Nothing else about the fixture moves. The second Test keeps its slot in the calendar, and only the ground changes, which spares both squads a reshaped schedule at the end of a long tour.

Lahore loses a Test it was due to host for the first time in this series, and the Gaddafi Stadium drops off the itinerary altogether.

Sri Lanka's players face a shorter journey than the one they had been expecting, since they are already in Rawalpindi for the opening match.

Ten days of smog over Lahore

Lahore has been under heavy smog for about ten days. The city's Air Quality Index has been reported as high as 600, a reading that puts it among the most polluted cities in the world.

At that level the haze is thick enough to shorten sightlines across an outfield, and it carries a health cost for anyone exercising outdoors for six hours a day.

The board did not spell out a threshold at which a match would have been called off, and it has not said whether any fixture later in the season is under review.

Rawalpindi takes the whole series

Rawalpindi has been the base for this tour from the start. The two captains, Babar Azam and Kusal Mendis, were photographed with the series trophy at the ground on 8 November, the day before the first Test began.

The venue now stages back-to-back Tests inside a fortnight, with a turnaround of only a few days between the end of one match and the start of the next.

That raises a question about the surface. A pitch asked to carry ten days of Test cricket in two blocks tends to offer less as the second match wears on, though the board has made no comment on which strip will be used.

Light has already cost time in the first Test

Conditions have interrupted the opening match too. Play was cut short by bad light on each of the first two days, with the players leaving the field early both evenings.

Pakistan's first innings closed on 434 for 9 from 106.3 overs after Sri Lanka won the toss and bowled. Five batters passed fifty, Saud Shakeel top-scoring with 93, alongside half-centuries for Tayyab Arif, Mohammad Taha, Babar Azam and Arafat Minhas.

Sri Lanka resumed the third morning on 114 for 3 and moved to 155 for 3 from 41.1 overs, still 279 runs behind and 79 short of the mark that would save them the follow-on.

What the move settles

For supporters the practical change is simple: tickets bought for Lahore are no longer tickets to a Test match, and the only cricket left in this series will be played in Rawalpindi.

For the two boards it removes a risk they could not control, in a month when Punjab's air quality has become an annual obstacle rather than an occasional one.

Whether the second Test is a dead rubber or a decider will be settled over the next three days at the same ground.

The series concludes at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium from 17 November, with Lahore's share of the tour now gone.