Junaid out of New Zealand tour with injury
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LAHORE: Pakistan's bowling attack suffered another setback ahead of the World Cup with Junaid Khan failing to recover in time to travel to New Zealand for a short series which was being seen as a warmup for the mega event.
According to chief selector Moin Khan, Junaid has been replaced with Bilawal Bhatti for the New Zealand tour.
The inclusion of Bilawal Bhatti for the ICC World Cup 2015 squad shall be contingent on his performance in the four scheduled matches in New Zealand as well as Junaid Khan’s recovery, Moin said.
“If Junaid recovers fitness, he will join the World Cup squad”, said Moin Khan.
“After the injury report of Junaid Khan by the team physio [Brad Robbinson] that he will not be able to travel to New Zealand due to his injury and will stay back in Pakistan for immediate rehabilitation under the supervision of Dr Sohail Saleem at the NCA, I discussed the issue with the Chairman and other concerned Board officials.
“The Chairman has considered and approved the request of the skipper Misbah-ul-Haq to include Bilawal Bhatti in the team under the condition that Bilawal Bhatti will play all scheduled matches in New Zealand.
“The decision for his selection will be considered in accordance with his performance as to whether he may continue or be replaced. It is, however, clarified that if Junaid Khan regains fitness, he will join the World Cup squad as announced on January 7, 2015.”
Junaid along with Mohammad Irfan, Wahab Riaz, Ehsan Adil and Sohail Khan formed a largely inexperienced pace bowling attack picked for the World Cup.
Pakistan are already without key spinners Saeed Ajmal and Mohammad Hafeez, who have been suspended from bowling by the International Cricket Council over illegal actions.
Pakistan will leave for New Zealand today for a two-match series before heading to Australia to play the World Cup which will be held from Feb 14 to March 29.
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Comments (43) Closed
Jan 20, 2015 03:16pm
Why not imran khan and rahat ali considered instead of bilawal bhatti ?
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Jan 20, 2015 03:18pm
This is it!
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Jan 20, 2015 03:18pm
Misbah wants sohail Tanvir, Moin wants Bilawal bhatti.Other selectors want someone else. But we want only Petrol.
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Jan 20, 2015 03:24pm
@Ahsin Imran Khan should be selected at the very first stage. But what we can expect from these selectors who selected 3 bowlers (Sohail Khan, Yasir, Ehsaan) who never played any one international in past years.
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Jan 20, 2015 03:46pm
Why not Anwar Ali who is fittest of them all.
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Jan 20, 2015 04:08pm
I have said time and time again, Junaid is a good bowler. However, his bowling has been exaggerated more than its moneys worth. You have to question the logic behind his inclusion in the team and Waqar is responsible for this. He makes decisions based on his ego, what he wants and how he wants. Waqars career has been marred with this issue and remains his major weakness. This world cup is a lost cause and it was ever since we hired him as the head honcho. What is stopping us from using Umar Gul who has a great record in Aussie domestic, or why not cheema who bowls at a nifty pace. Why not a pace bowler of wicket taking quality.. To top everything off, I am really concerned about the fabricated medical report that was published yesterday, advising that Junaid was fit to play. How come within 24 hours of that report he is suddenly not fit. If he is not fit to go to NZ, he certainly wont be fit to play WC in two weeks.
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Jan 20, 2015 04:10pm
BCCI involved.
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Jan 20, 2015 04:18pm
@Zoro .. No BCCI is busy in India's defeat in Australia. Look at today's score.
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Jan 20, 2015 05:03pm
Most injury prone player in Pakistan lineup
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Jan 20, 2015 05:04pm
@Ahsin Whats wrong with Bilawal?. He's done ok so far.
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Jan 20, 2015 05:09pm
Frankly, what beats me is the fact that we as a nation dont realize the repercussions that will emerge post this comedy. For decisons such as this, our board begs other cricket boards to arrange a fixture. No decison is taken with the national agenda in our minds. Our ego, self centered attributes have not only made us a laughing stock, with PCB-Chairman-Musical Chairs to Spot Fixing and Chucking. We as a human being have lost our ethics and our responsibilities. Lets face it, Junaid was nevera Wadim Akram or Imran Khan, but such low esteem decisions have brought a new low.
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Jan 20, 2015 05:18pm
Imran Khan or Azaz Cheema will be best choice. They are wicket taking bowlers
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Jan 20, 2015 05:23pm
Pakistan team lost waqar younis before the W/C in 1992.. is history really repeating itself..
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Jan 20, 2015 05:27pm
@Muneeb at that time we had Wasim Akram.
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Jan 20, 2015 05:47pm
@A Pakistani Yes we dunt have Wasim akram and have Wahab Riaz instead
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Jan 20, 2015 05:52pm
Please select Umar Gul. I am not his biggest fan but we need experience, especially when we are carrying highly inexperienced fast bowlers like Ehsan Adil and Sohail Khan.
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Jan 20, 2015 06:02pm
@Aamir
Along with fitness quality players who can perform at international level are required,he is mediocre
player ,he can perform at domestic level cricket.He has been given ample amount of chances.
He is not even Razak and Azhar Mahmood standard's player.
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Jan 20, 2015 06:08pm
@Oz
UMER GUL couldn't set his line and length throughout his career,look at his avg against per wicket in ODIs and now a days he is being hit for 4's more than before.
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Jan 20, 2015 06:16pm
@Talha
Yes,Umer Gul has a wast experience of being hit for 4's and he is generous in this regard for other teams,
it is nice to see when he starts scratching his face after being hit for another 4 in an over and so on..........just have a look at his recent record.I am sick of watching his face at least you will new faces.
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Jan 20, 2015 06:17pm
@A Pakistani
Go and get it if u can.
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Jan 20, 2015 06:18pm
Bilawal is the right choice. I am sure that after matches in New Zealand some other bowler like Ehasn Adil has to return.
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Jan 20, 2015 06:29pm
I am just happy that this has happened now and a new bowler can go now and get some used to the conditions rather that than junaid going out after 1 match and new bowler get pressurized of not performing. Although I agree with other comments that bhatti might not be the best choice.
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Jan 20, 2015 06:37pm
Him and few others should be reprimanded and not allowed to go to world cup for being not truthful about the extent of their injury!
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Jan 20, 2015 06:51pm
Why are we even bothering with the world cup?
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Jan 20, 2015 08:01pm
As critical as I am about our players;
I'd give Umar Gul, Sohail Tanveer or Anwar Ali a go before anybody else!
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Jan 20, 2015 08:04pm
He spends most of the time at REHAB center than on the grounds and nets. I am not sure why he has so much fitness problems. They are totally fine as long as they are part of domestic cricket. But as soon as they emerge on International arena, they come up with these problems. If he is completely fit then he should NOT be the part of team plans for next few months.His problems seem greater than Shoaib Akhtar.Anyway, Bilwal Bhatti or Anwar Ali should be a good replacement, I reckon.
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Jan 20, 2015 08:25pm
Doesn't really matter..
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Jan 20, 2015 09:09pm
I am sure we have ample stock of bowlers. Junaid should dropped asap. But dont pick U. Gul or Tanvir.
Good wishes to the team.
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Jan 20, 2015 09:26pm
Misbah cannot win world cup by lobbying selection of his favorite players. bilawal was also unfit recently. Anwar Ali always given chances on dead pitches with couple of drop catches in every match. Things always looked fishy to me.
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Jan 20, 2015 10:47pm
So Bilawal Bhatti is going to take wickets? He never knew where he is pitching the ball, never had control on line then why him while experienced bowlers like Umar Gul and Sohail and talented ones like Rahat Ali (who can swing both ways) are there to be replaced with. Bilawal Bhatti is a mini Mohammad Sami who can bowl fast but with no control. Pakistani selectors are so worried about batting that they are ready to compromise bowling.
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Jan 20, 2015 10:49pm
@Aamir - Your guess is as good as mine why not Anwar Ali. Bilawal has been injured throughout 2014 but it seems Pakistan captain and coach prefers injured players. Rahat Ali, Imran Khan, Talha and Mohammad Sami are better fast bowlers while Anwar Ali and Sohail Tanvir are much better all-roundesr.
The captain, coach and selector cannot control the destiny of a player. If it is destined that a certain player will make his mark in WC he will join the team later because of divine intervention.
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Jan 20, 2015 10:51pm
ONE CAN ONLY feel pitty for these selectors who want to go in to a world cup with all inexperienced attack of Bhatti, Ehsan Adil, Sohail and Yasir. Even a cricket playing child would be worried.
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Jan 21, 2015 12:45am
bad news for team.
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Jan 21, 2015 03:27am
@Oz I agree with everything that you have said. In fact, the bulletins put out by the PCB have been a bunch of lies. First it said he got injured while playing football. Then they said he got injured while bowling. Then they said he got injured while training. The country is paying Junaid a great deal of money basically for doing nothing. In the last 12 months how many matches has he played? It is incredible that Waqar and company keep on issuing the lies. If Junaid is indeed so frail that he keeps getting injured, then the best thing to do would be to write him off and cancel his contract. I am sure that that would get his attention, because the only thing that seems to get our cricketers' attention is money.
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Jan 21, 2015 04:08am
What a great tragedy?
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Jan 21, 2015 05:34am
Mr. Shaharyar must be sleeping in whole of this process. Just look at these two points:
(1) With inclusion of Bhatti in to the worldcup squad will leave us with a totally inexperienced attack of Ehsan Adil, Sohail Khan, Yasir Shah and Bhatti. They may say, he is only selected for NZ tour but one has to be totally out of his mind to not play that bowler against NZ who is to play in the worldcup.
(2) Why most of the bowlers who are selected were not played against Australia and NZ in UAE. Ehsan, Sohail, Yasir and Bhatti, all of them and even Junaid didn't play in UAE. Now some of them were injured, true but other were not. Rahat Ali bowled superbly in UAE and every one knows that he is the one who can swing the ball both ways like junaid but they didn't select him because he can't score those 10-15 runs which Bhatti can. They are so much worried about batting that they are ready to compromise on bowling even when we all know that Umar Gul is equally capable of scoring as much as Bhatti can.
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Jan 21, 2015 05:37am
@Oz, most of our bowlers are one dimentinal. Either they can swing out are in towards a righthanded batsman. Junaid and Talat are good at swinging both ways. They can really be handy if they also could control their line and length. They both can bowl at 140+ too.
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Jan 21, 2015 09:12am
Leave him out. Do NOT risk taking an injured player to the World Cup
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Jan 21, 2015 10:02am
Sir,
The World Cup has not yet started and the Pakistani squad has started getting unfit.
In fact the number of injuries to the fast bowlers in last 18 months has increased and the fitness cum exercise regime needs to be tailored made to each player's endurance rather than one regime for all!!!
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Jan 21, 2015 04:20pm
@A Pakistani Stop gloating about India's defeat. It will be our turn to face the same fate
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Jan 21, 2015 04:32pm
@Shafiq khan .. your team is just like "Knows no dance, claims the stage is tilted."
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Jan 22, 2015 12:18am
@Shahid You are right. Cricket affairs are run inefficiently by inefficient people. Anwar Ali, Fawad Alam, Asda Shafiq, Mohammad Sami and Sohail Tanvir are a victimof personal likes and dislikes. Misbah is reported to have requested for Bilawal though Anwar Ali and Sohail Tanvir gt more points in selection committee meetings. The coach requested for Wahab Riaz and Ehsan Adil.
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Jan 22, 2015 03:03am
@optimist it is not correct. Reports in many newspapers confirmed that Misbah wants Sohail Tanvir. While Moin doesn't.
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