All rounder Shahid Afridi has been retained as skipper for One-day Internationals and Twenty20 matches against England, as Pakistan Cricket Board on Tuesday announced 16-member squad. Shoaib Malik, Umer Amin, Imran Farhat and Yasir Hameed who failed to show any outstanding performance in the Test series against England have been dropped while Fawad Alam, Shoaib Akhter, Mohammad Hafeez and Abdul Razzaq have been able to get birth.
-- Shahid Afridi retains captaincy
-- Shoaib Akhtar, Abdul Razzaq recalled
Former captain Shoaib Malik also recently left out of Pakistan's Test side after scoring just one half-century in his last six matches. Selectors Tuesday ignored former Pakistani captain Younus Khan for the limited over matches series against England despite lifting a ban this year on him playing for his country.
Mohsin Khan, chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board's selection committee, said Younus's name had not been cleared by the PCB despite an indefinite ban on him being overturned by an appellate tribunal in June. "At the moment Younus's name was not cleared by the PCB chairman (Ijaz Butt), so he was not considered for selection," Khan told reporters while announcing the squad.
A spokesman of PCB said here Tuesday that chief selector Mohsin Hasan Khan in consultation with national selection committee, tour selection committee, team captain Shahid Afridi and after approval of Chairman PCB announced the Pakistan squad.
Middle-order batsman Mohammad Yousuf, who made his return to international cricket in Pakistan's victory over England at The Oval in the third Test last week, was also named in the squad. Kamran Akmal is the only specialist wicketkeeper in the group as Zulqarnain Haider has not recovered from a fractured finger.
Pakistan are currently playing a four-match Test series against England, with the final Test starting at Lord's from Thursday. After the Tests, they play back-to-back Twenty20 matches at Cardiff, on September 5 and 7 before their five-match one-day series starts at Chester-le-Street three days later.
The team is comprised of: Shahid Afridi, (captain) Salman Butt, Fawad Alam, Abdul Razzaq, Mohammad Asif, Mohammad Aamir, Umer Gul, Saeed Ajmal, Shoaib Akhtar, Wahab Riaz, Shahzaib Hasan, Mohammad Hafeez, Mohammad Yousuf, Azhar Ali, Umer Akmal and Kamran Akmal (wicketkeeper). Four reserve players namely Sarfraz Ahmed, Asad Shafiq, Mohammad Irfan and Abdur Rehman have also been named, the spokesman added.