LAHORE, Dec 17 Following on the footsteps of prolific middle-order batsman Younis Khan, two more Pakistani cricketers Sohail Tanvir and Umar Gul have signed to play in Australia`s Sheffield Shield cricket competition.

PCB Director International, Zakir Khan on Wednesday said that Sohail had submitted his request in writing to ask for permission to play for South Australia while Umar had verbally asked for the same and the board has allowed the two to proceed to Australia.

When contacted, Umar said he was still negotiating his contract with Western Australia and hopefully it would be signed in the next couple of days.

Though the PCB has given the permission to the two fast bowlers, it is in direct contrast to the policies of the previous PCB set-up which had which had decided not to allow the pacers to play county cricket after Mohammad Asif`s sustained an elbow injury in 2006 while playing for Leicestershire in England. In the following season, PCB stopped both Asif and Umar Gul to play for their respective counties, paying them hefty amount of nine million rupees each as compensation.