June 15, 2002	Saturday	Rabi-us-Sani 3, 1423

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)

LAHORE, June 14: The three “veterans” will try their best to impress the selectors who meet Saturday to pick the squad for July’s tour to Spain and Manchester Commonwealth Games.

Pakistan are to play four Tests from July 12 to 20 in Spain and will compete at the Games starting from July 25.

Full-back Naveed Alam, centre-forward Kamran Ashraf, goalkeeper Ahmad Alam will be trying their luck to earn places for themselves in the squad after being overllooked for a long time.

Naveed, called after a lapse of four years, will be battling against the likes of Sohail Abbas, Tariq Imran and Ali Raza. Despite having a youthful spearhead in Kashif Jawwad, Kamran is set to stage a comeback.

Ahmad, who announced his retirement after last year’s Azlan Shah debacle and reversed his decision recently, is most likely to get selectors’ nod.

Besides the three “veterans” Babar, who has also been invited after a long time, will have to prove his worth while competing against Khalid Saleem and Shabbir Hussain.

Three sessions of 35 minutes each will be held here at National Hockey Stadium to select an 18-member team for Spain’s tour. Two players will be dropped later to make it a 16-man squad for the Games.