National One-day Cup for Regions to miss Butt, Wahab, Asif, Yasir

KARACHI: A bunch of star players will be missing when National One-day Cup for Regions begins at different venues of Rawalpindi and Islamabad from Thursday (tomorrow).Among those who will be direly missed are former Pakistan captain Salman Butt, Test cricketers Wahab Riaz, Mohammad Asif, Yasir Shah and international Sohaib Maqsood.

‘The News’ has learnt that Salman has been ignored by the administration of Lahore Region. A source very close to the region said that Salman had opposed the sitting body during the elections of the region. However, another source of the Lahore Region told this correspondent on condition of anonymity that Salman has been ignored because he tries to get players of his choice in the team. The same source claimed that Wahab is also in Salman’s group.

A Faisalabad Region official told ‘The News’ that Yasir Shah had called him from Australia on Monday night and said that he would not be available for the event. Yasir is currently playing for Brisbane Heat in Australia’s professional T20 event, Big Bash.

He added that Sohaib had told him that he was not feeling well and was also going to get married in near future and so would not be available. Faisalabad will be led by former Pakistan captain Misbah-ul-Haq.

“Now we are going to replace Yasir with off-spinner Bilal Asif of Sialkot,” the official said. As many as eight outfits will be vying for the title in the event which will conclude on February 11. The teams are Lahore Whites, Lahore Blues, Karachi Whites, Islamabad, Peshawar, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad and FATA.

Each team will face all the other teams once. The leading four sides will progress to the semi-finals, which will be held at the Pindi Cricket Stadium, Rawalpindi, on February 8 and 9. The final will be conducted at the Pindi Stadium on February 11. Four matches will be held on the opening day on Thursday.

Lahore Whites will face Lahore Blues at National Ground Islamabad, Karachi Whites meet Faisalabad at KRL Ground, Rawalpindi, Islamabad will lock horns with Rawalpindi at the Pindi Stadium, and Peshawar will be pitted against FATA at the Diamond Club Ground Islamabad.

Arbab Niaz Stadium Peshawar will also be used as one of the venues. Barring the knock-out stage, seven matches of the league round will be telecast live. Peshawar are the defending champions. They routed Karachi Whites by 124 runs in the final on January 27 last year here at National Stadium.

FATA: Fawad Khan, Asif Afridi, Muhammad Naeem, Muhammad Sarwar, Asif Ali, Nisar Afridi, Irfanullah Shah, Mukhtar Ahmed, Yasir Hameed, Sohail Akhtar, M Samiullah, Ahsan Bhatti, Hammad Azam, Fakhar Zaman/ Rameez Aziz, Khushdil Shah, Sameen Gul, Mohammad Irfan, Mir Hamza

Peshawar: Israrullah, Ashfaq Ahmed, Sahibzada Farhan, Mehran Ibrahim, Gohar Ali, Akbar Badshah, Taj Wali, Jamal Uddin, Shah Faisal, Muhammad Aqib, Ubaidullah, Umar Islam, Imran Khan Senior, Muhammad Rizwan, Nabi Gul, Adil Amin, Zohaib Ahmed, Azizullah

Rawalpindi: Umer Amin/Sadaf Hussain, Naveed Malik, Muhammad Hafeez/Azhar Ali, Iftikhar Ahmed, Umer Waheed, Shadab Khan/Saud Shakeel, Sohail Tanvir, Umair Masood, Kashif Bhatti, Yasir Ali, Saad Altaf, Sarmad Hameed, Sheryar Ghani, Nazar Hussain, Zeeshan Malik, Bahram Khan, Talha Qureshi, Attaullah

Lahore Whites: Usman Salahuddin, Muhammad Mohsin, Rizwan Hussain, Waqas Ahmed, Umaid Asif, Muhammad Irfan, Ameer Hamza, Salman Fayyaz, Adnan Rasool, Muhammad Aftab, Umer Farooq, Asfand Mehran, Ahmed Shahzad, Ammad Butt, Imam-ul-Haq, Adnan Akmal, Umer Siddique, Hamza Haroon Paracha

Lahore Blues: Saad Nasim, Tayyab Tahir, Raza Ali Dar, M Waqas Saleem, Aizaz Cheema, Bilawal Iqbal, Salman Ali Agha, Zain-ul-Hasnain, Ali Mustafa, Qaiser Ashraf, Asadullah, Qamber Iqbal, Kamran Akmal, Umar Akmal, Sami Aslam, Junaid Ali, Muhammad Saad, Hussain Talat

Faisalabad: Khurram Shahzad, Asif Ali, Raees Ahmed, Hassan Mehmood, Shayan Sheikh, Ali Shan, Zain Abbas, Abdul Samad, Misbah-ul-Haq, Waqas Maqsood, Naseer Akram, Atif Jabbar, Asad Raza, Yasir Shah, Ahmed Safi, Ibtisam Sheikh, Attique Rehman

Islamabad: Imad Wasim/Nauman Ali, Hassan Ali/Hamza Nadeem, Ahmed Bashir, Babar Azam/Fahad Iqbal, Shan Masood, Muhammad Irfan, Zohaib Ahmed, Abid Ali, Shahid Yousuf, Sarmad Bhatti, Faizan Riaz, Saad Ali, Raza Hasan, Shahzad Rana, Ali Sarfraz, Arsal Shaikh, Muhammad Naqash, Sajid Rehman

Karachi Whites: Muhammad Sami, Anwar Ali, Khurram Manzoor, Faisal Iqbal, Muhammad Hasan, Azam Hussain, Danish Aziz, Muhammad Waqas Senior, Usman Khan, Owais Rehmani, Faraz Ali, Raza-ul-Hasan, Asad Shafiq, Fawad Alam, Akbar-ur-Rehman, Ruman Raees/Tabish Khan, Zia-ul-Haq, Muhammad Asghar.