Monday, May 7, 2007

Team announced for Abu Dhabi series with just two new faces

As widely touted in the media for last few days, Mohammad Asif has been named vice-captain of a Pakistan squad which includes just two new faces primarily as a result of Inzamam's retirement and Younis's unavailability. Fawad Alam, the young Karachi allrounder, who had such an outstanding domestic season, has been selected along with Najaf Shah, the young left-arm fast medium bowler from Rawalpindi, who has also been selected on the back of an impressive domestic season as well as good performance in the warm up matches.
This is the first team announced by the new paid selection committee, which has been constituted after the World Cup debacle and the subsequent resignation of the old selection committee. Salman Butt and Yasir Hameed made a return to the team along with the injured Asif and Razaq. Talat Ali, who has been named as manager for next two years, will also be the acting coach for the series while PCB continue their search for the new coach.
The most interesting selection has been for the post of vice captain which has gone to Asif, who doesn’t even have much captaincy experience even at the domestic level. It is a very interesting decision in a sense that although Asif has the ability to bowl with a good line and length regardless of the surface or the conditions but he doesn’t have any other credentials to prove himself as a future leader. This looks like a very ambitious decision by PCB which could backfire if Asif's bowling suffers because of added pressure due to the additional responsibility.
Team
Shoaib Malik (capt), Salman Butt, Imran Nazir, Mohammad Hafeez, Yasir Hameed, Mohammad Yousuf, Shahid Afridi, Fawad Alam, Kamran Akmal (wk), Abdul Razzaq, Mohammad Asif, Mohammad Sami, Umar Gul, Rao Iftikhar, Najaf Shah.

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