April 23, 2007	Monday	Rabi-us-Sani 05, 1428

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LAHORE, April 22: Dope-tainted fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar was not considered on Sunday for the national training camp, which starts here from Saturday for next month’s three-match ODI series against Sri Lanka in Abu Dhabi.

While announcing the list of 39 probables, chief selector Salahuddin Ahmed said Shoaib still required more time to regain fitness. He also said Younis Khan, who is playing for Yorkshire in England, could be included in the final squad if he confirmed his availability.

The newly-appointed selection committee held a two-day meeting at the PCB headquarters to announce the decision. Shafqat Rana and Saleem Jaffar, two members of the selection committee, also attended the meeting.

Salahuddin said the committee had also decided that in future no player will find himself in contention for the national team without playing domestic matches.

“It is the unanimous decision of the committee that it will only consider those players who will show their interest in the domestic cricket and it is part and parcel for every cricketer to perform in domestic cricket to earn a place in Pakistan team,” he said.

He said as it was the first assignment of the new committee, it wanted to see maximum players, therefore, the number of probables had been acceded to 30.

He admitted that some players were still missing but the selectors would give every player a chance to show his mettle.

He said though Younis was asked to confirm the availability, the selectors did not contact Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, Azhar Mahmood and Danish Kaneria, who are all are playing county cricket.

Meanwhile, the selectors put Mohammad Hafeez in the list of all-rounder and did not consider him as specialist opener.

In all, seven openers and ten middle-order batsmen were summoned for the camp.

Five all-rounders, including Pakistan new captain Shoaib Malik, are also included in the list. A total of 10 fast bowlers have been called up including Mohammad Asif.

Four spinners and three wicket-keepers will also appear in the camp.

Probables:

Openers: Salman Butt, Imran Farhat, Imran Nazir, Khurram Manzoor, Taufiq Umar, Babar Naeem, Khalid Latif.

Middle-order batsmen: Mohammad Yousuf, Faisal Iqbal, Misbah-ul-Haq, Asim Kamal, Hasan Raza, Naved Latif, Yasir Hameed, Riffatullah Mohmand, Shahid Yousuf, Adnan Raza.

All-rounders: Shoaib Malik, Abdul Razzaq, Shahid Afridi, Mohammad Hafeez, Fawwad Alam.

Fast bowlers: Mohammad Asif, Mohammad Sami, Umar Gul, Rao Iftikhar, Shabbir Ahmed, Abdul Rauf, Mohammad Irshad, Najaf Shah, Shahid Nazir, Mohammad Khalil.

Spinners: Abdur Rehman, Tahir Khan, Atif Maqbool, Mansoor Amjad.

Wicket-keepers: Kamran Akmal, Sarfraz Ahmed, Zulqarnain Haider.