Pakistan are the ICC Cricket World Cup 1992 champions, ICC Under 19 Cricket World Cupchampions twice in 2004 and in 2006 making them the first and the only team to become back to back champions in the Under 19 Cricket World Cup tournaments and they are also the currentICC World Twenty20 2009 champions. Pakistan have been semi finalist 3 times in the ICC Champions Trophy in 2000, 2004 and 2009.
Before the independence of Pakistan, cricket was played before the first Pakistan national team was granted test match playing status. Documentation and archives show that during the 18th century, cricket was played on the western side of India and many successful Indian cricketers played for the English cricket team.It was not until July 28, 1952 that Pakistan started playing test match cricket. Their first match took place in Delhi against India on October of the same year. Their first international tour was to England during 1954. Over the half century, Pakistan has become one of the most challenging and unpredictable teams in the world, the team won the1992 World Cup and were runners up in the 1999 World Cup. The country has produced several world-class players such as Fazal Mahmood, Hanif Mohammad, Sarfaraz Nawaz, Mushtaq Mohammad, Imran Khan, Javed Miandad, Abdul Qadir, Wasim Akram, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Saeed Anwar, Waqar Younis, Mohammad Yousuf and Shoaib Akhtar.
As of October 2007, the Pakistani team has played 332 Test matches, winning 30.29%, losing 26.76% and drawing 42.94% of its games.The team is ranked sixth in the ICC Test Championship and fourth place in the ICC ODI Championship. On August 28, 2006, Pakistan won its debut Twenty20 International match in England and were runners up in the inaugural ICC World Twenty20 in September 2007. They are the current ICC World Twenty20 champions, beating Sri Lanka on 21 June 2009 by eight wickets
