LAHORE: Former Pakistan captains Waqar Younis and Ramiz Raja as well as ex-chief selector Salahuddin Ahmed on Friday expressed shock over the omission of talented middle-order batsman Umar Akmal from the playing eleven of the second One-day International against New Zealand in Abu Dhabi.

Both Waqar and Ramiz, giving expert comments on a leading sports channel televising the three-match one-day series, said there was absolutely no logic in dropping the in-form youngster from the match since he had been making great strides as a batsman during the recent weeks.

‘It can be very discouraging for a young man like Umar since he has been very impressive in recent games for Pakistan and is raring to go against the Kiwis,’ said Waqar. ‘It is bound to shake his confidence in the coming games.’
 
Rameez also added that there was not much sense in resting one of the team’s best batsmen which Umar certainly is on current form.

‘I would like to know the logic behind this and whose decision was it to omit Umar from this game,’ said the former opener. ‘This will only hurt Pakistan.’

Salahuddin Sallu, talking to Dawn, expressed similar views and said Umar, like fast bowler Mohammad Aamir, was an impressive youngster who had proved his talent with his performance and deserved a constant place in the team.

‘I think the ouster will hurt the confidence of Umar to a large extent. This should have not been done with him at this moment,’ he lamented.

‘I will also not support the decision of dropping Shoaib Malik from the first ODI, since he is one of the best all-rounders for this version of the game,’ he said.

‘Pakistan should have gone with Kamran Akmal with any of the regular openers to make room for both Shoaib and Umar for all these matches,’ Sallu commented.