No respite for Pak cricket

After fixing scandal,team battles injuries to key players ahead of Twenty20 match and one-day series.

In yet another blow to Pakistan ahead of the two Twenty20s and five one-day internationals against England,four key players of the team suffered injuries during their warm-up match against Somerset,which the visitors won narrowly by eight runs.

Pakistan are already without Salman Butt,Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir,all three implicated in a spot-fixing scandal. In-form batsman Umar Akmal had a concussion after suffering a blow in the nets before the match while seamers Umar Gul and Wahab Riaz ended up with finger and shoulder injuries respectively.

Both,however,are likely to be fit for Sundays first T20 match against England. Abdul Razzaqs back injury,suffered during practice,is a cause for concern for the tourists,as the all-rounders absence will mean Pakistan taking the field without three of their frontline pace bowlers against England.

There was,however,some consolation for Pakistan as the warm-up match ended in a victory for them after Butts replacement,Shahzaib Hasan,notched up a century. That team fully firing might have cleaned us up a bit earlier but when you saw the death period and business end of game you could see they were well drilled in what they had to do, Somersets stand-in captain Peter Trego was quoted as saying by The Daily Telegraph.

Replacements called up

Meanwhile,batsman Asad Shafiq and fast bowler Mohammad Irfan have been called up by Pakistan as cover for the suspended players and are expected to arrive next week. The team management will decide later if another replacement is needed.

Pakistan manager Yawar Saeed urged his squad on Friday to stay strong and ride the pressure for the remainder of the tour of England following fixing allegations. We are human beings. Everybody has pressures in life we have to ride the pressure,not give in to it, Saeed said.

Amir dropped from award list

Amir will also be dropped from the list of nominees for the ICC Emerging Player of the Year award. The 18-year-old was one of the favourites for the award. An ICC official told Cricinfo that 8220;Amir8217;s removal from the list could be confirmed by 8216;reading between the lines8217;.8221; Amir was the first to be grilled by Scotland Yard detectives on Friday at the Kilburn police station in north London in the presence of his solicitor. Butt and Asif will be questioned later.