LAHORE: Facing an enormous task of finding quality bowlers ahead of a gruelling tour to Australia starting early next month, national team head coach-cum-chief selector Misbah-ul-Haq in consultation with bowling coach Waqar Younis has decided to call 15 in-form bowlers of all categories from the domestic circuit for a two-day training camp starting on Saturday.

The Pakistan squad for the Australia tour will be named after the said camp, to be held at the Gaddafi Stadium, concludes.

“The national selection committee has invited 15 high-performing bowlers from the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy and the ongoing National T20 Cup as well as fast bowlers Mohammad Abbas and Shaheen Shah Afridi for the weekend camp,” a PCB press release stated on Friday.

“The purpose of the camp is to provide the selectors better insight on the fitness and form of the bowlers that can further assist them while picking the T20 and Test sides [for the Australia tour]. It will also give the bowlers an opportunity to understand their shortcomings and ways to improve their skills in the upcoming domestic matches,” the release added.

Misbah is going to announce the squad for the tour of Australia on Monday.

Abbas and Shaheen will be back in action after missing domestic matches. Right-armer Abbas was given a break after the third round of the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy to strategically manage his workload while left-armer Shaheen will return after for the first time since picking up dengue fever in August.

Meanwhile commenting on organising the camp for the bowlers, Waqar said: “As the National T20 Cup has a two-day break, we thought of utilising this time by holding a bowlers camp in Lahore with multiple objectives. But this does not mean that the selectors have limited their selection options to these bowlers. The selectors have an open mind and bowlers who are best suited to the formats and conditions on the upcoming [Australia] tour will be selected.”

Misbah and newly-appointed Test captain Azhar Ali will also monitor the camp.

Bowlers invited for the camp:

Bilal Asif (Central Punjab), Bilawal Bhatti (Southern Punjab), Imran Khan Sr (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), Kashif Bhatti (Sindh), Mohammad Abbas (Southern Punjab), Mohammad Irfan Junior (Southern Punjab), Musa Khan (Northern), Mohammad Mohsin (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), Naseem Shah (Central Punjab), Rahat Ali (Southern Punjab), Sameen Gul (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), Shaheen Shah Afridi (Northern), Tabish Khan (Sindh), Yasir Shah (Balochistan), Zahid Mahmood (Southern Punjab).

Published in Dawn, October 19th, 2019