How about we extend a chance to Asim Kamal in place of Farhat or Hameed? While the vacuum created by the absence of Shoaib and Gul will be interesting to fill cuz the choices are perhaps limited to Rao Iftikhar, Shabbir, or the worse one, Rana Naveed.

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Had cricket been a religion, Imran Khan would've been the god.

I read that along with Rao and Shabbir, Afridi and Abdul Rehman were also being considered as possible replacements for the injured trio of Gul, Malik and Akhtar, who are being sent back home.

I'd probably pick Shabbir out of the lot, and no, I don't see how Inzi will drop any of Hameed, Farhat or Hafeez. Hameed had a poor test, but he's just 1 test into a come back into the test side, the reason why any of our oft tried and replaced combinations have never succeeded is precisely because people jump on the bandwagon after seeing the results of one match. Hameed's last test before the test he played in SA, was I think, if I'm remembering correctly, in the Sydney New Year's test a couple of years ago, a match in which he scored two half centuries, add to that his half century in the first innings at Centurion and you have 3 consecutive half centuries. He's followed that with 3 single figure scores but, you'd agree, in line with the theory of giving people a "proper run" in the side, that Hameed would probably deserve more then 2 tests in the name of that "proper run". Farhat also had a half century in the previous test and Hafeez would have had one here if he was more lucky with some of the decisions he got from the umpires. So no, I'll not drop any one, and stick with the same batting, and just get in Shabbir in place of Shoaib. And I suspect, Inzi too, wouldn't want to tinker too much with a winning combination.

Shabir flying in apparently...

guess they heard ya Z


can we play 2 spinners in the last test???
Danish was getting massive turn

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Yeah the idea is not bad, who u gonna drop though? Sami?
Plus its not gonna be the same wicket that produced the turn.

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Had cricket been a religion, Imran Khan would've been the god.

Wonderful win by Pakistan in the second Test. Timely innings by Younis, and good to see Akmal coming good with the bat. Sorry to hear about his father....

Given what happened, will Akmal be playing in the final test?

Also, I think Pakistan should stick to the same opening pair for the final test. Pakistan chop and change their openers too often....

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Nobody has a batting stance quite like the mighty Shivnarine....

my team for pkaistan for the final test
Hafeez
Farhat
Hameed
Younis
Yousaf
Inzamam
Akmal
Sami
Shabbir Ahmed
Danish Kaneria
Mohammad Asif

True. The pitch as given a lot of water the last 2 weeks, and yesterday there was still a good amount of green to be seen. BUT, the weather has been very hot in Cape Town since Monday.

I think given what happened, Kamran would very much rather want to play.

I don't think Shabbir will be considered for the Newlands test. They would have had to have called him up earlier.

Perhaps only one change then to the winning side from PE. Rana or Nazir in for Shoaib.

Shabbir is NOT on his way to South Africa. The PCB turned down Inzi's request to send him here for the final test.

According to Dawn, :..."the selectors are not confident about the match-fitness of the lanky pacer and feel that it would be difficult for him to switch on to international cricket so quickly after a one-year layoff due to ICC ban..."

But, Shabbir along with ..."Abdul Razzaq, Shahid Afridi, Imran Nazir, Abdur Rehman, Shabbir Ahmed and Rao Iftikhar are all under consideration for next month’s five-match One-day Internationals series against South Africa."