LAHORE: Distressing news emerged for Sohaib Maqsood on the very first day of the training camp on Tuesday as the middle-order batsman was ruled out from the upcoming tour of Bangladesh after suffering from a recurrence of fracture in his upper left-arm.

Subsequently, 25-year-old all-rounder Saad Nasim who was already inducted into the Twenty20 side has been included in the One-day International (ODI) squad. Saad who is a right-handed batsman as well as a leg-spin bowler has just played three T20 Internationals.

Pakistan is leaving for Bangladesh on April 14 to play two Tests, three ODIs and a one-off T20 till May 10.

“This post-selection recurrence has ruled Sohaib Maqsood out of the ODI and Twenty20 International series against Bangladesh. Sohaib had already joined the camp, and he complained of acute pain during the gym/fitness session on the first morning.

“Subsequently, he underwent investigation which revealed that there is a tiny broken piece of bone off the hook of hamate,” a PCB press release stated.

“After consulting fellow selectors and having sought PCB chairman Shaharyar Moham­mad Khan’s approval, chief selector Haroon Rashid named Saad Nasim as his replacement for the ODI squad. Saad was already a member of the Twenty20 International squad for the Bangladesh series,” it added.

Sohaib was selected for the tour of Bangladesh despite the fact his performance in the recently-concluded World Cup was not impressive for which he was faced with severe criticism from the country’s cricket experts who had similar reservations over performance of Umar Akmal, Ahmad Shehzad and experienced all-rounder Shahid Afridi.

However, the newly-formed selection committee headed by Haroon Rasheed gave another chance to Sohaib while dropping Umar from all three formats and Shehzad from Test and ODI version of the game.

Published in Dawn, April 8th, 2015

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