Fitness Issues with Certain Players Delays Announcement of Pakistan's T20 World Cup Squad

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has delayed the announcement of its World Cup squad until late May due to fitness and performance issues with some players.

A PCB source said Pakistan would announce its T20 World Cup squad either on May 23 or 24 May — which is the deadline set by the ICC for participating teams to make changes to their squads without seeking permission from the WC Technical Committee.

The management and selectors are concerned over niggling injuries to Muhammad Rizwan, Azam Khan, Irfan Khan Niazi and Haris Rauf and will observe them and performances in Ireland and England.

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The selectors will announce the squad for the tours of Ireland and England on Thursday and the team management and selectors will assess the fitness and performance of selected players before announcing the WC squad.

India, Australia, England, South Africa, New Zealand have all announced their WC squads until now.

“It (delay) doesn’t matter because all these teams can change their entire squad by 24th May after that changes can only be allowed on fitness or injury basis with approval of the technical committee,” he said.

“That is why the PCB and selectors have decided to hold off until after the first match in England.”

The source also added that the selectors also wanted to give more time to Babar Azam and other players to settle down and recapture the old bonding in the dressing room before the WC squad is announced.

“For the time being we have sent a provisional squad to the ICC for public relations and promotion purposes,” the source said.

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Probable squad for Ireland and England series: Babar Azam (C), Muhammad Rizwan, Saim Ayub, Fakhar Zaman, Iftikhar Ahmed, Azam Khan, Irfan Khan Niazi, Usman Khan, Shadab Khan, Imad Wasim, Usama Mir, Abrar Ahmed, Muhammad Amir, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Haris Rauf, Naseem Shah, Abbas Afridi and Aamir Jamal.