Pakistan eyeing series win over Bangladesh to maintain dominance in T20 rankings.

LAHORE -- The Pakistan cricket team is hoping to maintain its dominance in the world ranking and also prove to the woeld once again that it is ready to host international cricket when the green-shirts take on Bangladesh in a Twenty20 series starting today (Friday).

If the host team lose just one of the three matches scheduled they will slide to second behind England or India in the rankings after holding the top spot since January 2018.

But they also want to show the security situation has improved enough for the team to start regularly hosting home internationals.

Following an attack in 2009 by militants on a convoy ferrying the Sri Lanka team to a fixture in Lahore, Pakistan became a wilderness for the national side who had to play its home fixtures in the Middle East.

That ended in December when Sri Lanka returned to give Pakistan their first home series in a decade.

The first priority for skipper Babar Azam is to stay top of the world in the shortest international version of the game.

"The focus is to continue the number one ranking," said Babar on Thursday.

"We can hang on to that only if we win all three matches, so its a do-or-die situation and we have planned for that," he told a press conference.

Pakistan's rise started in 2016 under Sarfaraz Ahmed as they won eleven consecutive Twenty20 series - before losing three on the trot.

A poor finish in the 50-over World Cup in England, where they failed to reach the semi-finals, resulted in the sacking of Sarfaraz and head coach Mickey Arthur, to be replaced by Azam and Misbah-ul-Haq respectively.

The team remained in a slump in Australia late last year, losing 2-0 in the Twenty20s and by the same margin in two Tests.

Now the selectors have recalled veterans Mohammad...