LAHORE: More than half a dozen current Pakistani cricket players are likely to be dumped for the forthcoming World Cup due to their involvement in the alleged match-fixing saga.
Chances are that beleaguered Pakistan wicket-keeper Zulqarnain Haider would be among the cricketers that also involve wicket-keeper Kamran Akmal, leg-spiner Danish Kaneria and Yasir Hameed apart from the tainted trio of Salman Butt, Muhammad Asif and Muhammad Aamir.
It has been learnt that the PCB has been directed by the International cricket Council to keep its affairs and the team clean of anyone who is involved or linked to match-fixing. The selection committee, acting on the new code of conduct introduced by the PCB on the directions of the ICC, has sidelined Akmal and Kaneria while Hameed has already been discarded.
The course of action Zulqarnain Haider adopted without taking his captain and the team management into confidence has made him lose sympathy within the board. The selection committee after scrutinizing the provisional 30-men squad list has issued a separate list in which it has mentioned the names of the players who will not be a part of the national squad until the end of the investigations.
It must be noted that Pakistan is due to put forth the 30-men squad list in front of the regulatory body by November 30. It has also been learnt that PCB chairman and the ICC top officials have entered into a verbal agreement not to include any tainted player in the team for the time being.
Several players likely to be axed for WC’11
