KARACHI - The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has stopped tall left-arm pacer M Irfan from competing in the ongoing Ramazan Twenty20 events so that he faces no fitness issues ahead of team selection for the ODI series in Sri Lanka.
"He is under consideration for the five ODIs and T20 matches in Sri Lanka and he has just recovered from a serious injury after nearly three and half months. We have called him to report at the national cricket academy to keep him under watch before the team is announced," Chief selector Haroon Rasheed said.
Irfan played in the national T20 Ramazan event last week for the Omar Associates team which won the title. "We allowed him to play in Faisalabad as we wanted to see him bowl in competitive cricket and tough conditions and he looked quite fit. But we don't him playing in low profile tournaments in Ramazan before the limited over series in Sri Lanka," the former Test batsman said.
Rasheed said the decision to call Irfan to the NCA was taken after the injury to left-arm pacer, Wahab Riaz. Riaz and middle order batsman, Haris Sohail were ruled out of the ongoing Test series in Sri Lanka due to different injuries and the selectors have already sent uncapped batsman, Babar Azam and pacer Rahat Ali as replacements for the remaining one Test.
Rasheed said Fawad Alam was under consideration for the Test series to be sent as a replacement but later on it was decided to test out the young Babar Azam. He said doctors had given both Wahab and Haris two to three weeks to recover from injuries. "We will watch their progress and then decide about squad for the limited over series as we have some time on hand as the ODI series begins on July 12."