Pakistan drops Younis from Champions Trophy squad

KARACHI: Pakistan on Sunday omitted out-of-form Younis Khan from a 30-man initial squad for the eight-nation Champions Trophy after the middle order batsman flopped in recent one-day matches.

The 35-year-old Younis managed just 116 runs in the series against South Africa earlier this month which Pakistan lost 3-2 and has not managed to score a century since November 2008.

Pakistan is in group B of the event to be held in England from June 3-23. The other teams in their group are arch-rivals India, the West Indies and South Africa.

Defending champions Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and England form group A.

All teams had April 6 as the cut off date to announce their initial squad to be trimmed to 15 in May.

Chief selector Iqbal Qasim said the Pakistani squad was a “mix of youth and experience”.

“Younis’s name was not considered after he did not show the form in the last few matches,” he told AFP.

Pakistani media reported last week that Younis was contemplating retirement from one-day cricket after giving up Twenty20 following the team’s 2009 World Twenty20 victory in England under his captaincy.

But sources close to Younis denied he was retiring from one-day cricket. He was also dropped from the team for a series against Australia in the United Arab Emirates last August before he regained his place against India in December.

Younis has so far scored 7014 runs in 253 one-day internationals after making his debut 13 years ago.

Also overlooked was allrounder Abdul Razzaq, who hasn’t played a one-day since November 2011.

Pakistan face the West Indies in their opening match on June 7 before clashing with South Africa (June 10) and arch-rivals India on June 15.

Probables: Nasir Jamshed, Mohammad Hafeez, Imran Farhat, Ahmed Shehzad, Misbah-ul-Haq, Haris Sohail, Asad Shafiq, Umar Akmal, Shoaib Malik, Umer Amin, Sohail Tanvir, Hammad Azam, Azhar Ali, Shahid Afridi, Asad Ali, Anwar Ali, Junaid Khan, Mohammad Irfan, Wahab Riaz, Umar Gul, Rahat Ali, Ehsan Adil, Imran Khan, Aizaz Cheema, Yasir Arafat, Saeed Ajmal, Abdul Rehman, Zulfiqar Babar, Kamran Akmal, Mohammad Rizwan.