July 31, 2007	Tuesday	Rajab 15, 1428

LAHORE, July 30: Many deserving players have been ignored from the list of 27 cricketers who will receive a retainership from the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) for one full year, starting July 1. Each of these players will receive Rs 40,000 per month from the board for this period.

There were some notable omissions from the list announced by the PCB on Monday including Test reject Hasan Raza, Babar Naeem, Humayun Farhat, Saeed bin Nasir, Fahad Masood, Saeed Ajmal, Asif Zakir, Tahir Mughal and Mohammad Khalil despite their impressive performances in the last first-class season.

Hasan, who scored 525 runs in the Quaid-i-Azam Trophy and 387 runs in the Pentangular Cup, was ignored and so was Saeed bin Nasir who had scored 529 runs in the Quaid-i-Azam Trophy and 387 runs in the Pentangular Cup.

Babar Naeem, the top scorer in the Quaid-i-Azam Trophy with 607 runs also failed to find a place in the list. Left-arm medium-pacer Mohammad Khalil took 34 wickets in the Patron's Trophy yet he was not found good enough for a retainership. Similarly Saeed Ajmal, who grabbed 24 wickets in the Quaid-i-Azam Trophy and 25 scalps in the Patron's Trophy was also axed from the final list by the PCB.

Test rejects Taufiq Umar, Asim Kamal, Bazid Khan, and international Najaf Shah were, however, included among the 27 cricketers despite showing mediocre performance in the domestic season.

Taufiq, indeed, had played some good innings in the Patron's Trophy, scoring 367 runs, but in the Pentangular Cup he managed just 119 runs and a not so good 242 in the Quaid-i-Azam Trophy.

Asim Kamal scored 144 in the Pentangular Cup and only 45 in Quaid-i-Azam Trophy while fast bowler Najaf Shah took just one wicket in the Pentangular Cup and 24 in the Quaid-i-Azam Trophy but both were considered good enough for the retainership by the board.

Among the unlucky bowlers who failed to make the grade despite some really good stints at the domestic level were Tahir Mughal and Asad Ali who took 33 wickets each in Quaid-i-Azam Trophy. In stark comparison, medium-pacer Yasir Ali, Junaid Zia and batsman Bazid Khan were included despite ordinarily faring in the competitive cricket during the 2006-07 season.

The 27 players to receive retainership from PCB are: Taufiq Umar, Najaf Shah, Abdul Rehman, Fawad Alam, Naveed Latif, Zulqarnain Haider, Mohammad Irshad, Abdur Rauf, Khurram Manzoor, Khalid Latif, Adnan Raza, Sohail Tanvir, Afaq Raheem, Junaid Zia, Anwar Ali, Tahir Khan, Sarfraz Ahmed, Asim Kamal, Nasir Jamshed, Yasir Ali, Shahid Yousaf, Mansoor Amjad, Shoaib Khan, Zohaib Khan, Uzair-ul-Haq, Atif Maqbool, Bazid Khan.