LAHORE: Misbah-ul-Haq, Junaid Khan and Sohaib Maqsood are still on injury-list raising questions about their selection in the final World Cup squad, which is to be announced by Jan 7, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) announced on Saturday.

Only paceman Ehsan Adil has made excellent recovery and bowling at full length, added the PCB health bulletin.

About Misbah, the PCB claims his resistance testing against 70 per cent of manual resistance is pain-free and he needs to achieve pain-free full strength.

“Fresh scans done on Misbah on Thursday suggested that the swelling/edema around his strained muscles has reduced to a great extent. Misbah strained one of his hamstrings while fielding against New Zealand in the recently concluded ODI series. His scans suggested a grade II strain of the hamstring. Misbah thus progressed on to phase two of his rehabilitation, after the criteria for this progression were met. He now has a normal walking stride without any pain, jogging too is pain-free and his resistance testing against 70 per cent of manual resistance is pain-free.

“Apart from other criteria, Misbah needs to achieve pain-free full strength and range of motion and replicate his sports specific movements near maximal speed without pain, before he is declared fit to take the field in Pakistan colours,” the bulletin added.

On Junaid, the PCB release said: “Junaid is recovering very well from his injury. He did some rigorous ground testing last week which he completed without any signs of previous injury. He did feel a little discomfort while moving sideways but this is almost one-third of what he had at the time of injury.

“He is doing some good bowling practice with Mohammad Akram in the nets. His recent MRI has shown some reduction in swelling around the injured site but as expected, the bony status continued to be the same.”

And about young batsman Sohaib, the press release said: “Sohaib was diagnosed with a fracture of a tiny bone and a sprained ligament in his left wrist around the third week of last month. Scans testified progression of the healing process. There were signs of nerve irritation sitting beside the fractured bone.

“Sohaib is recovering well as there is no tenderness over the fractured site but he still has residual symptoms related to nerve irritation, i.e. weakness in his little and ring finger. On manual power measuring scale his power would be around four-fifths (4/5th) than the previously registered two-fifths (2/5th). He has started batting in the nets last week but with a weaker grip. He did complain of some weakness and pain in the left hand after the succeeding day of practice.”

About Ehsan, the PCB claimed: “He has made excellent recovery and is now bowling at full strength at the National Cricket Academy under Akram’s supervision.”

Published in Dawn, December 28th, 2014