Arshad gets surprise call for New Zealand Tests

Off-spinner Arshad Khan got a surprise call for the second half of the New Zealand tour when he was named as one of the three changes by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB).

Director of the PCB, Brig Munawwar Rana, said from Islamabad that the selectors had submitted the names of middle-order batsman Younis Khan and uncapped wicketkeeper/batsman Humayun Farhat. The three players will leave for Auckland on Wednesday.

Rana added that the team management will decide after the fifth onedayer which players are to be released.

He hinted that there was as a possibility that another player might fly out to Auckland later this week.

Rana was unable to reveal details which led to the selection of Arshad Khan who was not amongst the five probables the selectors had announced on Monday after a three-hour meeting with chairman of the board Lt Gen Tauqir Zia.

Arshad, who appeared in the Patron's Trophy second round match against ADBP, was pulled out from the game on Tuesday.

So much so, one of the selectors was also unaware of Arshad's selection while admitting that the lanky bowler was not even discussed in Monday's meeting. The selector's ignorance again proves that the selectorial panel is nothing but rubber stamp.

Several attempts were made to contact chairman of selectors Wasim Bari but to no avail.

However, Arshad's inclusion out of the blue smells fishy. His sudden addition leads to suspicion that spinner Saqlain Mushtaq is in trouble.

The selectors were pretty disappointed with the way he performed in the Christchurch one-dayer while conceding 63 off 10 overs, including 24 off his eight-ball last over.

Nevertheless, Saqlain was the Man-of-the-Match in the third one-dayer. He had figures of one for 23 and none for 25 in the opening two matches.

Arshad, after a highly successful tours to West Indies and Sri Lanka in the absence of Saqlain Mushtaq, was overlooked for the first and third Tests against England last year. His recall now proves that not only the cricket team but the selectors also lack consistency in selection policies.

The narrow vision of the selectors can also be gauged from the fact that with Inzamam-ul-Haq out of commission for nearly two weeks, they are flying just one middle-order batsman.

For the one-day series, the selectors had included only two middleorder batsmen but five openers. And now the situation is that the team management is searching for a make-shift batsman.

The PCB director admitted that the three reinforced players will not be available for selection for the three-dayer at Lincoln against New Zealand A and starting March 3.

With these three not available for the three-dayer, it is anybody's guess how they will perform in the first Test after coming from a different part of the world to play in alien conditions.

In the entire exercise of finalizing the three players, the selectors over-looked Sargodha's Misbah-ul-Haq who was Quaid-i- Azam Trophy's top scorer with 947 runs, including four centuries.

To rub salt to Misbah's injury, the PCB took his travel documents only on Tuesday.

On an another front, it has been decided by the cricket managers in Pakistan that Shoaib Akhtar will be recalled if he fails to overcome hamstring injury he sustained after bowling nine balls at Napier.

"Fazl-i-Akbar will fly out if Akhtar doesn't recover from the injury," sources said, adding: "There is no point of carrying one bowler as mere tourist."

Shoaib, who has been accompanied by Dr Tauseef, also stayed in the West Indies throughout the tour without playing a Test. He only appeared in the second final of the best-of-three series.

Explaining Fazl-i-Akbar's inclusion in the presence of Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and uncapped Mohammad Sami, the sources said the trio can face fitness problems anytime.