Strangers on board at the cost of merit

It seems that the some of the talented players, who are on fringe of higher honours, are fighting against injustice at the hands of the PCB's selection committee.

On Tuesday, a PCB press release, signed by the manager media, from Lahore announced squads for the two four-day tour matches against England with just two representatives from Karachi, the country's largest cricket association, among the 28 players named.

Wicket-keeper Javed Qadeer, who has played several One-day Internationals, is in the 14-man Patron's XI side for the Nov 1-4 match at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium along with young pace bowling sensation Mohammad Sami.

But the most astonishing fact is that no less than six cricketers belonging to Rawalpindi feature in the squad some of whom were overlooked by their own association for the current Quaid-i-Azam Trophy National Grade-I Cricket Championship.

Many people hardly know about the credentials of players like Rana Kausar Javed, Salman Shah (both from Rawalpindi), Mohammad Altaf (Islamabad) and Ali Raza, who belongs to Dera Ghazi Khan, a side which has never played at first-class level!

Likewise, the squad to represent Governor's XI in the Nov 8-11 fixture at the Shahi Bagh Stadium in Peshawar includes as many as seven representatives from that city.

In fact, someone in the PCB has mentioned Test batsman Younis Khan hailing from Karachi! The 22-year-old Mardan-born righthander made his first-class debut for Peshawar a couple of seasons ago and has played for that association ever since.

In the Governor's XI squad, the selection of Mohammad Naeem (Dera Ismail Khan) and Kashif Afzal (Wah Cantt) is preposterous by all accounts as both of them had never played in any first-class match.

The most glaring omission for that match is Peshawar's own Fazle Akbar, the 20-year-old Test fast bowler, and off-spinner Arshad Khan, who in Saqlain Mushtaq's absence performed exceptionally well on the tour of Sri Lanka recently.

If the criteria is picking young - and up and coming - players, the claims of Nomanullah, who deserves recognition at the top level having shown immense promise in recent times, cannot be ignored. The same applies to the likes of Hasan Raza, Atiq-uz-Zaman (both with Test experience) Asim Kamal, Zeeshan Pervez, Afsar Nawaz,Danish Kaneria, Yasir Arafat and Irfan Fazil.

Kaneria was a victim of selectors' shenanigans when he was omitted at the eleventh hour from the Pakistan 'A' squad for the one-day practice tie against England last weekend.

If Munir Ansari, otherwise known as Rawalpindi's Muralitharan, merits a place for the tour match than his Pakistan Under-17 team-mate Khalid Latif should also have been given a chance to prove his worth against a Test-class opposition. Khalid was instrumental in giving Karachi Whites the National Under-19 Grade-I Cricket Championship crown with a stunning double century against Gujranwala at Rawalpindi last month.

It is clear that selections these days hardly are done on pure merit. Players, who have been performing exceptionally well on the domestic circuit, are now being isolated from national assignment. These matches against touring teams mean a lot to many a youngsters.

The end result will be that ultimately Pakistan will be short of adequate back-up when the need arises.