Yasir Shah, Fawad Alam, Azhar Ali Amongst 25 Players Invited By PCB For A Month-Long High-Performance Camp

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) have called up 25 ‘elite’ cricketers, senior and junior, at its High-Performance department for a month-long camp. These 25 players are either not playing in the ongoing Pakistan Super League (PSL), or are amongst the fringe players seeking entry into the Pakistan team, or those who have lost their place in the national side and looking to make a comeback.

In the recent home Test series against South Africa, big names such as Mohammad Abbas, Shan Masood and Haris Sohail were dropped and new faces were introduced. Abbas and Sohail will feature in this camp alongside other Test players like Asad Shafiq, Azhar Ali, Fawad Alam, and Yasir Shah as they are not playing in the PSL 2021.

“The camp will commence at the National High Performance Centre in Lahore on Tuesday, March 2, in which the high-performance coaches will work on various technical and physical aspects of the elite cricketers,” PCB said in a release.

PCB employed former greats as coaches at the High-Performance Centre

PCB’s National High-Performance Centre has a world-class coaching unit, which includes Atiq-uz-Zaman, Mohammad Yousuf, Mohsin Kamal, Saqlain Mushtaq, and Umar Rasheed, who will work with these elite cricketers on their physical, technical, and mental aspects.

“This camp is being organised as part of our philosophy and strategy to build the profile of the National High Performance Centre as a developing and finishing school for the cricketers so that our national coaches can extract the required performances at the international stage,” Director – High Performance, PCB, Nadeem Khan, said.

“This camp has been designed in such a way that the current players who are not part of the HBL Pakistan Super League 2021 and may potentially be in contention for the April tour of South Africa and Zimbabwe can remain connected and hit the ground running when they land in Africa,” he added.

The Babar Azam led side whitewashed the Proteas at home in the 2-match Test series and won the T20I series 2-1. After the conclusion of the PSL, the Men in Green will return the favour and travel to South Africa to take on Quinton de Kock’s side for 3 ODIs and 4 T20Is and are also likely to play Zimbabwe, the schedule has not been made official yet.

Later, in the year they will fly to the UK to challenge England in white-ball matches, and will then host Eoin Morgan’s side for another T20I series in a bid to prepare for the T20 World Cup in India.

Players invited for the camp by the PCB:

Abdullah Shafique, Abid Ali, Ahmad Bashir, Asad Shafiq, Azhar Ali, Bismillah Khan, Fawad Alam, Hammad Azam, Haris Sohail, Hasan Khan, Imran Butt, Irfanullah, Kamran Ghulam, Khurram Shahzad, Mohammad Abbas, Nauman Ali, Rehan Afridi, Sajid Khan, Salman Irshad, Saud Shakeel, Tabish Khan, Taj Wali, Usman Salahuddin, Umar Khan and Yasir Shah

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