August 04, 2008	Monday	Sha'aban 1 429

LAHORE, Aug 3: While some senior cricketers will not be available for the three trial matches to be played here in order to select a final squad for the ICC Champions Trophy, invitation extended to a good number of 40 probables to play in the matches makes the event look like a non-serious affair.

The national selection committee has already sent a list of 30 probables to the International Cricket Council (ICC) out of which five, namely, opener Salman Butt, all-rounder Shahid Afridi, Yasir Arafat, Bazid Khan and Azhar Ali, will not be available to play in the matches for different reasons.

Salman was recently operated for appendicitis and Afridi, who also missed the physical training camp at Kakul caring for his ailing wife, is himself recovering from a wrist injury while Yasir, Bazid and Azhar are away playing county/league cricket in England.

But the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) surprisingly released the names of 40 players for the two Fifty-50 and one Twenty-20 match, which includes the names of all the five players no playing. Thus only 35 will be tested in the three matches.

Meanwhile the inclusion of too many probables would divert the selectors’ concentration. Instead of focusing on a specific lot they would be looking at many players.

The three matches will be held under floodlights on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, starting at 4.00pm.

Probables:

Shoaib, Malik, Salman Butt, Nasir Jamshed, Khalid Latif, Khurram Manzoor, Ahmed Shahzad, Yasir Hameed, Younis Khan, Misbah-ul-Haq, Azhar Ali, Bazid Khan, Shahid Afridi, Sohail Tanvir, Fawad Alam, Mohammad Hafeez, Raheel Majeed, Fahad Iqbal, Ali Asad, Asad Shafiq, Umar Amin, Yasir Arafat, Mansoor Amjad, Shoaib Akhtar, Umar Gul, Mohammad Ali, Rao Iftikhar, Sohail Khan, Abdur Rauf, Wahab Riaz, Anwar Ali, Mohammad Aamir, Kamran Akmal, Sarfraz Ahmed, Abdul Rehman, Saeed Ajmal, Immad Wasim, Junaid Khan, Mohammad Talha, Naeem Anjum, Yasir Shah.