Shoaib offered Bollywood role

Shoaib Akhtar has not been playing a starring role in the Pakistan team recently but he has now been offered a leading part in a new Bollywood film, called Gangster

Mahesh Bhatt, a leading Bollywood producer, is meeting Shoaib in Karachi next week to try and persuade to take up the role. According to Bhatt Shoaib was surprised by the offer but has agreed to read the script. "Once he hears the story he cannot refuse it," he told BBC News.

Shoaib is currently starring in a commercial being shown on Indian TV and he would not be the first Pakistani cricketer to take to the big screen. Mohsin Khan, the former batsman, starred in a Bhatt film in 1987, but failed to get any other roles after the film flopped at the cinema.

Shoaib has been omitted from the Pakistan squad for the tour of West Indies, amid concerns about his fitness, and has demanded an explanation for the selectors, but obviously his dodgy hamstring is not a concern to Bhatt.