Camp for elite cricketers from today

LAHORE: The Pakistan Cricket Board is conducting a High Performance camp for elite cricketers here at the National High Performance Centre from Tuesday (today).

An official of the PCB said that the players who have been called to the camp include Abdullah Shafique, Abid Ali, Asad Shafiq, Azhar Ali, Fawad Alam, Haris Sohail, Imran Butt, Kamran Ghulam, Mohammad Abbas, Nauman Ali, Sajid Khan, Saud Shakeel, Tabish Khan and Yasir Shah. There will be a total of 24 players in the month-long camp.

The cricketers who are either not featuring in the Pakistan Super League 6 or have been knocking at the doors of international cricket or recently lost their places in the national side will be among the trainees.

The High Performance coaches will work on various technical and physical aspects of the elite cricketers.

There are three main objective of this camp: to help the elite cricketers in identifying, working and overcoming their technical flaws so that they can be back in contention for reclaiming their places in the national side; to keep the players who are not participating in the HBL Pakistan Super League 6 involved with the game so that they are ready and prepared for the April series in South Africa and Zimbabwe; and to reward and encourage players who have impressed in the domestic circuit so that they can do better in the next season.

National High Performance Centre’s coaches Atiq-uz-Zaman, Mohammad Yousuf, Mohsin Kamal, Saqlain Mushtaq, and Umar Rasheed will work with these elite cricketers according to a robust programme.

Director – High Performance, Nadeem Khan said: “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.

“This camp has been designed in such a way that the current players who are not part of the HBL Pakistan Super League 6 and may potentially be in contention for the April tour of South Africa and Zimbabwe can remain connected and can hit the ground running when they land in Africa,” Nadeem said.

“As part of our commitment, we have invited players who have recently lost their places in the national side. We believe it is our responsibility and obligation to provide them the necessary coaching support so that they can overcome their deficiencies and stake claims for national recalls,” he added.

“The camp will be led by Saqlain Mushtaq, who will have the support of some of the most experienced and qualified coaches in Mohammad Yousuf, Atiq-uz-Zaman, Mohsin Kamal and Umar Rasheed. I am expecting Misbah-ul-Haq and Waqar Younis to also visit us regularly,” he said.

Chair of national men’s selection committee Muhammad Wasim said: “We have organised this camp as part of our plans of working on the technical aspects and improvement of the players dropped from the team. This is an excellent opportunity for these players to work on their shortcomings.

“We will be keenly observing them as this camp will help us shape our plans for our upcoming international cricket commitments,” he added.

Players invited for the camp: Abdullah Shafique, Abid Ali, Ahmed Bashir, Asad Shafiq, Azhar Ali, Bismillah Khan, Fawad Alam, Hammad Azam, Haris Sohail, Hassan Khan, Imran Butt, Irfanullah Shah, Kamran Ghulam, Khurram Shahzad, Mohammad Abbas, Nauman Ali, Rehan Afridi, Sajid Khan, Salman Irshad, Saud Shakeel, Tabish Khan, Taj Wali, Umer Khan, Usman Salahuddin and Yasir Shah.