LAHORE, Oct 7: Amid a controversial change in the squad picked by national selectors, a 15-member squad for the Canada Twenty20 four-nation tournament was finally announced on Tuesday.

Well-informed sources told Dawn that the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has included opener Shoaib Khan of the Quetta Region, excluding off-spinner Saeed Ajmal, who had been picked for the Oct 10-13 Canada tournament by the national selection committee headed by Salahuddin Ahmed.

Salahuddin, along with two other members of the committee — Shafqat Rana and Saleem Jaffer — had been present in the PCB offices for the last two days to select the team for the Canada event while watching as many matches as possible in the ongoing national Twenty20 tournament.

But the problems to select the squad compounded when the Canada High Commission, according to the sources, refused visas to premier Pakistan batsman Mohammad Yousuf and all-rounder Yasir Arafat for unknown reasons.

After getting the clearance on visas of other players from the PCB, the selectors finalised the 15-member team.

However, when Salahuddin, along with Saleem left for Karachi, the PCB issued a press release announcing the squad, including Shoaib Khan in place of Saeed.

Shoaib had played a fine knock in the opening match of the Twenty20 Cup scoring 85 against Lahore Lions. But his innings failed to give Quetta Bears victory.

Meanwhile, Shoaib Malik and Misbah-ul-Haq were retained as captain and vice-captain respectively while Kamran Akmal is the lone wicket-keeper for the Twenty20 event.

The omission of hard-hitter Nasir Jamshed and inclusion of Khalid Latif seems surprising.

Shoaib Akhtar, after spending around 10 months in the wilderness due to various controversies, has been recalled for an international event by the selectors.

The maverick paceman will lead the pace attack, which also has Umar Gul, Sohail Tanvir, Abdur Rauf, Anwar Ali and Sohail Khan, while Rao Iftikhar was dropped.

It was learnt that the unpredictable fitness of Shoaib Akhtar and Umar forced the selectors to include six pacemen for a short-duration event.

Salman Butt, Younis Khan, Misbah, Shahid Afridi and Fawad Alam along with Shoaib Malik will take care of the batting department.

The team will leave for Canada on Wednesday.

Besides Pakistan and hosts Canada, Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka are other teams.

Squad: Shoaib Malik (captain), Misbah-ul-Haq (vice-captain), Salman Butt, Younis Khan, Shahid Afridi, Kamran Akmal (wicket-keeper), Sohail Tanvir, Shoaib Akhtar, Umar Gul, Fawad Alam, Sohail Khan, Khalid Latif, Abdur Rauf, Shoaib Khan, Anwar Ali.