Pakistan team for Youth World Cup finalized

Islamabad, Nov 18: The national junior selection committee finalized and submitted a 14-man Pakistan Youth World Cup squad to the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) ad hoc committee on Thursday evening.

The squad was submitted after a three-day trial that concluded at the Pindi Cricket Stadium on Thursday. The camp will resume on Saturday.

The proposed squad is: Hasan Raza (HBL), Imran Nazir (Pakistan Reserves), Imran Farhat (Lahore), Taufeeq Umer (HBL), Faisal Iqbal (Pakistan Reserves), Bilal Naeem (Rawalpindi), Yasir Arafat (Pakistan Reserves), Zahid Saeed (Pakistan Reserves), Irfan Fazil (Lahore), Jan Nisar Khan (Peshawar), Humayun Farhat (Pakistan Reserves), Sami Khan (Karachi), Shoaib Malik (Pakistan Reserves), Danish Kaneria (Pakistan Reserves).

Kamran Akmal (Lahore) and Tahir Khan (Karachi) are the two reserves.

According to informed sources, Hasan Raza has been proposed as captain while Yasir Arafat, who captained a Pakistan Emerging Eleven on the tour of Holland, has been recommended as vice-captain. The exclusion of two budding youngsters has raised eye-brows.

Islamabad's Ashar Zaidi, who scored 672 runs and took 21 wickets in the National Juniors Cup, was left out. The left-hander has also scored 250 runs in the on-going Quaid-i-Azam Trophy. Similarly, Karachi's Tahir Khan also failed to impress the selectors with his consistent performance.

It was learnt that the selection of Taufeeq Umer and Danish Kaneria over Ashar Zaidi and Tahir Khan respectively was debated at length in by the selectors. After a deadlock, the head of the selection committee Agha Zahid opted for show of hands to finalise the squad. Secretary of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Shafqat Rana was also present in the meeting. The members of the junior committee included Rashid Khan, Arshad Pervaiz and Farrukh Zaman.

It is also interesting to point out that when the selectors picked Test players like Hasan Raza and Imran Nazir, they have ignored Shahid Afridi for the prestigious event to be played in Sri Lanka earlier next year. The last Under-19 World Cup was held in Australia in 1987-88 and Pakistan had finished losing finalists to the West Indies. The Pakistan Under-19 team was then captained by Zahoor Elahi.

Bazid Khan, another potential junior decided to withdraw from the probable list citing domestic reasons. The first phase will continue at Rawalpindi till Nov 27. The second phase will resume at Karachi's National Cricket Stadium from Dec 1 or 2, it was learnt