Haroon Rasheed praises Saeed Ajmal, says he is under selectors' radar

Rasheed says Saeed Ajmal is still under consideration

Haroon Rasheed, Pakistan Chief Selector, was interviewed by PakPassion.net. He said that Saeed Ajmal is among the considered players for the national side.

“He’s been a great asset for Pakistan and is doing well in the county season and bowling really well with his new action,” said Haroon Rasheed. “We are in touch with him and he is keeping us informed about his progress. He remains on the selectors radar and in the reckoning especially since he has put in a lot of effort with his new action.”

Haroon wasn’t as forthcoming about the return of Mohammed Amir. “He hasn’t really started playing serious cricket yet and has recently suffered an injury so it’s too premature to comment on that subject,” he said. “Once Amir is back in domestic fully then we can talk again on this subject and properly assess how he is doing.”

Asked why Umar Akmal was not part of the playing team against Sri Lanka, Rasheed said, “Let me state what I have said so before in the media. We asked players including Umar Akmal who were in contention for the ODIs against Sri Lanka to report to the National Cricket Academy, but he didn’t show up.”

He added that if required, Akmal may be called back, “Umar is playing Twenty20s in the Caribbean at the moment which is fine. As is, his One Day International performance in the last few games hasn’t been that great, so yes, he can continue with the CPL and if we feel a need to call him back urgently, we will do that.”

Haroon also talked about Fawad Alam, and reasons for him not being chosen. “There is no deficiency in Fawad,” Haroon clarified.“The fact is that in total of four hundred players that we are looking at for a place in the squads, only fifteen or sixteen will be picked at any given time.

“However, we have given him a few chances in the limited overs format during the Bangladesh series where he played three ODIs, yet he did not perform that well. By the way, just to confirm, Fawad was preferred over Asad Shafiq in those games.

“Although he has done well in the past few domestic seasons and also did well on the Pakistan ‘A’ tour of Sri Lanka, in our view, he seems to be better suited for the longer format of the game where he can play alongside Misbah-ul-Haq and Younis Khan. Fawad has been given consistent chances and we want the same for other players also.”

The Pakistan side is in excellent form. They won both in Test and ODI format against Sri Lanka. The next ODI is scheduled for 15 June at Pallekele.

"We are in touch with Saeed Ajmal and he is keeping us informed about his progress in county cricket" " : Haroon Rasheed

— PakPassion.net (@PakPassion) July 12, 2015