Pentangular teams call up replacements

The provinces competing for the Pentangular Cup will be hit by the absence of the players named in Pakistan's14-man squad for the three-ODI series against West Indies in Abu Dhabi during the tournament's third- and fourth-round matches. Five players, included in the squad of seven for the Hong Kong Sixes, will also not be available for the third-round games.

The two teams most affected are defending champions Sind, and Punjab. Sind will be without Shahid Afridi, Fawad Alam and opening batsman Khalid Latif, all part of the ODI squad, as well as Faisal Iqbal and Anwar Ali, who will be in Hong Kong. Punjab are worse off, with Shoaib Malik, Nasir Jamshed, Salman Butt, Kamran Akmal and Saeed Ajmal in the ODI squad and Mohammad Talha and Mohammad Salman, a wicketkeeper, in the Sixes team.

Four of Federal Areas' players will be absent: fast bowlers Shoaib Akhtar, Ifthikar Anjum and Sohail Tanvir and opening batsman Raheel Majeed. Baluchistan, who upset Sind in the previous round, have lost two players in Misbah-ul-Haq and Abdur Rauf. North West Frontier Province, who were already without captain Younis Khan, playing for South Australia, will also be without Umar Gul, who was captain in Younis' absence.

The Abu Dhabi ODIs take place from November 12 to 14, and the players will attend a two-day training camp in Karachi. They will return for the two final rounds of matches. Sind's Sohail Khan and Federal Areas' Yasir Arafat are standbys for the ODIs, and will be available unless they are called up to the squad.

The reserves called up by the teams are:

Punjab: Ayub Dogar, Azhar Ali, Zulqanain Haider (wk).

Sind: Asad Shafiq, Ali Asad, Afsar Nawaz, Uzair-ul-Haq, Tabish Khan.

NWFP: Armaghan Elahi.

Balochistan: Sohaib Maqsood, Asad Ali.

Federal Areas: Mohammad Aamer, Mohammad Rameez, Kamran Hussain.