LAHORE: Rana Abdul Wahid has been appointed captain of Pakistan’s junior squad for the Junior World Cup to be held in Bhubaneswar, India from Nov 24 to Dec 5.

Announcing the 18-member squad on Tuesday, chief selector Manzoor Junior under whose captaincy Pakistan won the inaugural World Junior Cup in 1979, Moeen Shakeel was announced as deputy of Wahid.

Flanked by head coach Olympian Danish Kaleem and head coach of the senior team Khawaja Junaid, Manzoor while announcing the team said though the team could not make appropriate preparations for the mega event due to Covid-19 epidemic, the players had the potential to excel which they exhibited during the four-match series against the national team’s senior probables held last week.

He hoped for the best from the national team while claiming it was the best squad, duly selected on merit.

18-member squad named for the mega event

According to Manzoor, a number of junior squad members were ready to get a place in the senior team, which would participate in the Asian Champions Trophy in Dhaka next month.

Meanwhile, Manzoor said except for Abuzar and Mohammad Abdullah Indian visas of all the other Pakistan players had been received.

Hopefully, he said, their visas would also be received in the next couple of days from Indian High Commissioner. And if due to any technical reason, these two players could not get visas then Ali Aziz and Samiullah had been kept as their replacements.

Danish said as Pakistan had played no international match, no team had the idea about his team’s strength.

“We have witnessed some matches of Germany and we are preparing the team keeping in mind their potential but they have no idea about our boys so it is a plus point of our [junior] team,” Danish said.

Pakistan face Germany in their Junior World Cup group ‘D’ opener on Nov 24, followed by group matches against Egypt on Nov 27 and Argentina (Nov 28).

Before the start of the World Cup, Pakistan play back-to-back practice matches against Chile (Nov 21) and Canada (Nov 22).

Since 1993, Pakistan have struggled to get a place on the podium in the Junior World Cup. In 1993, Pakistan earned silver medal after losing the final to Germany in Spain. Besides winning the gold medal in 1979, Pakistan claimed bronze medals thrice in a row — 1982, 1985 and 1989.

Squad:

Rana Abdul Wahid (captain), Moeen Shakil (vice-captain), Waqar, Abdullah Ishtiaq (goalkeepers), Aqeel Ahmad, Rizwan Ali, Adeel Latif, Mohammad Hammad-ud-Din, Abdul Hanan Shahid, Ghazanfar Ali, Umair Sattar, Mohibullah, Abuzar, Mohsin Hasan, Abdul Manan, Abdul Rahman, Roman Khan, Mohammad Abdullah.

Published in Dawn, November 17th, 2021