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Hampshire will leave the naming of their final 11 until shortly before the start of the Cheltenham & Gloucester Trophy Fourth Round clash at Taunton against Somerset, to allow two key players extra time to recover.There are doubts over captain Robin Smith, who despite extensive treatment on his back since the injury curtailed his involvement at Bath last week, is still rated as doubtful.The other worry is on all-rounder Dimitri Mascarenhas, who has picked up an infected top on his right foot. Both will be put through their paces in the morning to test their fitness.Laurie Prittipaul stands by for Smith, while James Hamblin keeps his place in the squad and will play if Mascarenhas does not recover in time.Alan Mullally, who missed last Sunday’s National League defeat to Surrey with a rib tear, is back and will play.Hampshire 13: James Hamblin, Neil Johnson, Derek Kenway, John Crawley, Laurie Prittipaul, Robin Smith (capt), Nic Pothas (w-k), Giles White, Will Kendall, Dimitri Mascarenhas, Shaun Udal, Chris Tremlett, Alan Mullally.

Man of the match, man of the series, winning captain – about the only accolade Shaun Pollock was missing at the conclusion of the third Castle Lager/MTN Test match was man of the century, and it’s a fair bet that if a vote was taken now for the honour he’d be up there among the contenders.Not that he doesn’t deserve the plaudits: South Africa’s innings and seven runs victory over Sri Lanka at SuperSport on Monday completed a magnificent season for the home team. South Africa won four out of six home Test matches this summer, with the two missing matches both suffering from interference from the weather, and 10 out of 11 one-day internationals.This is an impressive record, whichever way you look at it, and the quality of the cricket played by the South Africans, particularly in the last two Test matches as Sri Lanka were crushed by an innings, has done much to help the country consign Hansie Cronje to his unfortunate place in history.For Pollock, the Sri Lankan series was an almost uninterrupted triumph. He took his 200th Test wicket in the first Test in Durban, claimed six for 30 to blast Sri Lanka out for 95 in the first innings at Newlands and then hammered out a maiden Test century at better than a run a ball – after South Africa had been 204 for seven – at SuperSport Park.He has now established himself as one of the world’s leading all-rounders, an adventurous captain and a leader able to inspire both the youngsters and veterans in his side. It has been a remarkable learning curve for the 27-year-old.The outcome at SuperSport Park on Monday amounted to little more than a formality. The only real ambition remaining for the Sri Lankans, 184 for three overnight, was to reach 259 and make South Africa bat again.They failed by seven runs, but perhaps more disappointing for all concerned, came when Kumar Sangakkara was denied a century and a rare opportunity to carry his bat through an innings.He was last man out for 98 after batting for 10 minutes less than six hours and it is doubtful that even the South Africans would have begrudged him his hundred. To make matters worse for the young man, his LBW decision, claimed by Makhaya Ntini and given by Peter Willey, looked a bit iffy.But Sangakkara (and Russel Arnold on Sunday) was about all Sri Lanka had to take from the match. They were handicapped by the absence of Muttiah Muralitharan and Chaminda Vaas, but in truth it was their batting rather than their bowling that let them down, in this match and throughout their tour.At the start of the tour Sanath Jayasuriya had expressed concern about the lack of preparation his batsmen would have on South African pitches and he made the point again at the end of if.He did single out Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene as batsmen who had moved forward on the tour, and said that Muralitharan had bowled magnificently. But he had to concede that the batsmen had let the side down.There are quite clear lessons for the Sri Lankan management and administration from this tour. If they are not absorbed, the next side to tour here will suffer a similar fate.But it has been South Africa’s, and Pollock’s, match and series. Pollock singled out the performances of others as the high points of the summer – Neil McKenzie’s maiden Test century in Port Elizabeth and Ntini’s bowling in Bloemfontein – but everyone else will remember him scything through the Sri Lankan batting in Cape Town and thrashing the bowling all over Centurion. This particular series has been coloured with a ginger rinse.

Former cricketer Ajay Jadeja today made a foray into Bollywood withthe muhurat of his debut film at a studio in Mumbai, though he saidcricket will always be his first love.”Cricket has been my first love and will always be so”, Jadeja toldreporters at Subhash Ghai’s Audeus Studios.The former Indian middle order batsman, who is challenging the banimposed by the BCCI for his alleged involvement in the betting andmatch-fixing scandal, said he was fighting the ban and in no way wasbidding goodbye to cricket.Speaking about the film, Jadeja said, “I am playing a character whobehaves and talks the way I do in real life though I had to learnquite a bit while preparing for the role”.”Most of the people who are coming to films have undergone actingclasses or some sort of professional training, but in my case I haveto start from the beginning and have a lot to learn”, Jadeja said andadded that though he had done ad-films, a movie was something verydifferent.”Since it is my debut film, I wanted to make sure I get a good roleand was very careful while choosing this movie to be directed by YusufKhan, his first directorial venture, and produced by Pammi Sandhu”,Jadeja added.The film also has Sunil Shetty while the heroine is yet to be decided.

Bangladesh will witness its first day-night first-class game when one of the four opening day National Cricket League (NCL) matches will be played with a pink ball at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium on October 14. Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) made this announcement at the end of a meeting which also tweaked the requirements for prospective bidders for the BCB worldwide media rights.The pink ball has been used before in a women’s one-day international in 2009, and first-class matches in the West Indies and England. Two English county season-openers were also played with the pink ball in the UAE in 2010 and 2011.BCB president AHM Mustafa Kamal also confirmed that the existing first-class competition, the NCL, will be turned into a franchise-based tournament to be held on a single-league basis, the final of which will also be a day-night five-day game. “For the first-time ever first-class cricket will be played under lights using a pink cricket ball that has been approved by the ICC,” he said. “This tournament will be run by the BCB, but will be executed by the different zones. We are also going to take nine former cricketers from the different regions, to coordinate this tournament.”Since there weren’t many offers from companies to buy the divisional sides in the competition, Kamal said the BCB would start the first-class tournament with any number of company-bought franchise. “Even if we get [even] two franchises, we want to start the tournament and keep it competitive. The rest of the teams can have names of the divisions during the tournament,” he said.BCB also amended the prerequisites for prospective bidders for broadcasting and media rights and extended deadlines for obtaining the tender document (September 6) and submission (September 12). The new requirement stipulates a tender to be acceptable if one among the marketing agent and the broadcaster has five years’ experience in the related field. Earlier all three components of the media rights – production, broadcasting and marketing – required five years of experience in cricket coverage.The changes to the stipulations were made after only two companies made offers when the first deadline – August 31 – closed.”We will consider one of the three components (production, marketing and broadcasting) in the successful bidder with five-year experience,” Kamal said. He said he wanted the new offer to be iron-clad after the experience they had with Nimbus during the 2006-12 broadcasting deal.”We will not only look at our financial benefit and compromise with quality. We will consider both as major selling points. We will not repeat the mistakes that we made in our last deal. We had a $56 million deal with Nimbus, in which production cost was included. Now we will not take any risk, keep everything in net-basis.”There will be an insurance cover put in place as well. At the time of the offer, they have to pay $2.5 million as security money in the form of bank guarantee, bank draft, etc. But we will take this for a few days. A week after we give them a letter of intent, they have to pay the first year’s payment in cash,” he said.Kamal will head a new committee to scrutinise the bidders. The other members of this committee are BCB directors Ahmed Iqbal Hassan (finance committee chairman), Jalal Yunus (media chairman) and Mirza Salman Ispahani (tender and purchase committee chairman). The BCB chief hoped that the new broadcaster will be appointed by this month, the deal being for four years till 2016.Meanwhile, the BCB has awarded Tk 1 lakh ($1224 approx.) each to members of the Bangladesh Under-19 cricket team that finished seventh in the World Cup in Australia. Anamul Haque and Taskin Ahmed have been awarded Tk 2 lakh ($2447 approx.) each for being top performers with bat and ball for Bangladesh.

It’s that time again: the time when real cricket enthusiasts stand out from the crowd, the time when concentration lapses during daylight hours are common, when the day could be any day and the time could be any time.It’s time once again to go through the night to follow England’s defence of the Ashes.As the picture suggests, as the series gets underway, Mike Gatting, the former England captain, has been issued with the task of staying up all night to guard the Ashes urn. No Australian can get through that defence.How To Follow The Ashes is today’s biggest quandary for England’s cricket lovers. Late bed-goers prefer to take in the first session before surrendering to sleep, confident in Samuel Johnson’s assertion that whoever goes to bed before midnight is a scoundrel. Others catch the final session along with the first, indecently-early coffee of a new morning. Some snooze intermittently through TMS or awake to check their mobiles at half-hourly intervals.But the true believer never misses a ball, or at least attempts not to, tying together the threads of tired thought night after night, often alone, resistant to the emptiness of the darkest night, clinging to the hope that out of the potential hours of misery will arise dreams as bright as any imaginable.And should England not deliver, exhaustion will make the disappointment all the greater, a sense as China Mieville had it in Perdido Street Station, of scraping long nails against the surface of the moon.ESPNcricinfo will watch every ball for you, with a full team of writers in both Australia and England bringing you every aspect of the Ashes series: the fastest comprehensive match reports on every day’s play, our much-loved Ball by Ball service, and immediate analysis of the series in words and video from the likes of Mark Nicholas, George Dobell, Jarrod Kimber, David Hopps, Dan Brettig and Brydon Coverdale.It is probably the first time Gatt has embarked upon an all-night session in a pair of MCC pyjamas, but it will look all the rage when he joins 50 cricket enthusiasts from all over Britain for an Ashes sleepover in the MCC Museum at Lord’s.Judging by the photo, the sponsors will be providing some strong tea to help him through, although there are rumours of something stronger, and mattresses will be provided in case he feels in need of a “strategic power nap”.There were more than a few Australians who suggested that England needed a strategic power nap on Gatting’s last tour of Australia in 1994/5 – Gatting’s presence in the tour party, at 37, alongside the 41-year-old Graham Gooch , led England to be derided in the media as Dad’s Army – but he hit back with a century in Adelaide in what was to prove to be his penultimate Test. In all, he played 27 Ashes Tests.Gatting’s vigil is all in aid of the Chance to Shine charity, which works to develop cricket in state schools, and if he is feeling a little compromised at the end of it all there is always the prospect of a big Lord’s breakfast to look forward to.

Shane Warne has accused Ricky Ponting of being motivated by “jealousy” in criticising his Australian captaincy successor Michael Clarke, while also asserting that Alastair Cook will risk losing the Ashes for England should he continue to lead in a “negative” manner.In a typically showstopping stream of opinions ahead of Australia’s return bout with England, Warne leapt to the defence of his “best friend” Clarke, arguing that Ponting’s written critique of the incumbent leader in his autobiography was the result of bitterness. He also said Ponting’s actions did not compare favourably with those of Allan Border and Mark Taylor, the “two best captains” the former legspinner played under.”I know he beats himself up mercilessly about being the only Australian captain ever to lose three Ashes,” Warne said in a press conference call with English media for the Ashes broadcaster Sky Sports. “And I know Ricky made that horrific decision to put England in at Edgbaston in 2005. I don’t want to be mean about Ricky – he’s a good guy and he tried to do the best he could.”But to bring up the stuff about Pup [Clarke] – maybe there was a bit of jealousy, because Pup was batting so well and Ricky was not making any runs. To me, Michael’s very well respected. The best captains keep stuff in the dressing room. No-one ever finds out about it. That’s what good leaders are about. So to hear all this in a book is pretty ordinary.”Cook’s leadership of England has thus far been characterised by a close relationship with the coach Andy Flower and a calm guiding hand rather than any great invention in the field. England’s preferred approach is of a more conservative nature than that of Clarke and the Australian coach Darren Lehmann.”If Michael Clarke did the same things, I’d say he was negative, but he’s not. That’s not the way he captains,” Warne said. “Cook can be negative, boring, not very imaginative – and still win and be pretty happy. But I think he needs to be more imaginative. If Australia play well and he continues to captain the way he does, I think England are going to lose the series.”I don’t think he can captain like that – and I’m not working in any capacity whatsoever for Cricket Australia. Darren Lehmann is a good mate of mine, and Michael Clarke is my best friend, of course I speak to them a lot but I call it as I see it. And I’m not the only one who thinks Alastair Cook is a negative captain.”He lets the game drift. He waits for the game to come to him. I don’t think he can captain the side like that. For me, Michael Clarke is the best captain in the world at the moment. He just has a lot of imagination. Cook would never have a leg slip, bat-pad and leg gully, like Clarke did for Jonathan Trott in the summer.”To round off his serve, Warne said England would do well not to play Joe Root at the top of the order during the series, suggesting the young Yorkshireman would be “crucified” facing the new ball on Australian pitches. Warne preferred to see Michael Carberry as Cook’s opening partner, with Joe Root to bat at No. 6 instead of Jonny Bairstow.”I don’t think Root’s an opener because of his technique. Australia found him out in England, and in Australian conditions they’ll find him out more. You can’t get stuck on the crease in Australia because of the pace of the wickets.”It could be crucifying him if he has got to face Ryan Harris, Peter Siddle and Mitchell Johnson on some fast, bouncy pitches. I think he’s just going to nick off a lot. Besides Lord’s, where he got 180, Australia really did have his number.”

Andrew Strauss has revealed for the first time how he feared his England team would be undermined by Kevin Pietersen’s antipathy towards those running English cricket long before matters came to a head in a home series against South Africa in 2012.The fallout from the ECB’s refusal to sanction Pietersen’s wish to retire from 50-over cricket, and also be free to play more IPL, was seen in a long-running furore centred upon a series of disenchanted text messages sent by Pietersen to South African players.Strauss has now admitted that he suspected “treachery” as the affair so dominated the summer and ensured that what should have been a celebration of Strauss’ 100th Test at Lord’s instead became a frustrated climax to his career. He retired “tired and generally hacked off with life”.In his new autobiography, which is being serialised in the Daily Mail, Strauss tells of how he took Pietersen aside at a golf day ahead of the South Africa series to discuss his state of mind. “I had heard some troubling rumours he might be preparing to separate himself from English cricket after a further attempt to get the ECB to yield ground had failed,” he writes.”At a golf day a few days before the first Test, I took him to one side to ask what was going on. It was clear he was far from happy. I challenged him to think about his legacy and the goals he wanted to reach with the rest of his career. Unfortunately, we were interrupted and it is fair to say that I did not know at the time quite how close he was to the edge.”England suffered a heavy defeat in the opening Test and the Pietersen situation worsened in the week of the second Test at Headingley. “On the practice days, he seemed completely withdrawn, as though he was consciously distancing himself from the team, and on the first day of the game itself he seemed determined to let everyone in the ground know just how unhappy he was.”As captain, I could not let it go and I called him into a back room to make it clear his behaviour was unacceptable. I was shocked by his lack of contrition and his apparent hostility towards me. It felt as though he was trying to goad me into a confrontation. It was almost as if he was trying to engineer an excuse to turn his back on the team.”Despite his issues, Pietersen played one of his finest Test innings at Headingley; 149 that helped England get a foothold in the series. But in his press conference that followed, he expressed his difficulties and suggested he was about to take some decisions that “would make me very happy”.”I was unsurprised to then hear Kevin had given a disturbing press conference following what was a thrilling drawn Test match. What greatly puzzled me, though, was his comment that, ‘It’s tough being me, playing for England’, seemingly implying he was being treated badly by his team-mates in the dressing room. For me, he had crossed the line. He seemed to be at best destabilising and at worst undermining our carefully cultivated team environment.”Strauss describes the draining effect Pietersen’s behaviour had on his captaincy. “I feel incredibly tired, as though I have simply run out of energy – I have nothing more to give,” he said. “I am also wallowing in a rising tide of sadness. This is not the way I wanted my England career to end.”Pietersen was dropped for the final Test at Lord’s but the issue marred Strauss’s 100th Test. He retired following the defeat and admitted his “unbelievable frustration” at the manner in which his carer ended.”This is the last time I will make this walk as an England cricketer, although I am far too frustrated, tired and generally hacked off with life for it to be a rousing emotional affair,” he writes. “I find my space in the far corner of the room, near the television set, and sit down. I pack my helmet in my kitbag and then bury my head in my hands. For 10 minutes I sit, unable to move.”

Wicketkeeper-batsman Ashish Bagai will lead Canada for their last two matches of the World Cricket League Championships against Netherlands. Bagai was recalled to the squad in May this year, after spending some time away from the game pursuing an academic degree.The two matches will be held in King City on August 27 and 28. While Canada, who are placed last on the table with three points, will look to salvage some pride, Netherlands will look to strengthen their case for direct qualification into the 2015 World Cup. The top two teams in the WCL Championship gain direct entry into the World Cup and Ireland have already sealed their place with an unassailable lead. Netherlands, second on the table with 15 points, will look to win both matches to open up a lead ahead of Scotland and Afghanistan, who are also on 15 points. Teams that finish between the third and seventh places will play a second qualifying tournament in 2014The two teams will also play their final league match of the Intercontinental Cup on August 22-25. Canada are placed last with 23 points in six matches, while Netherlands are second from last with 36 points from six matches. Canada’s squad for the Intercontinental Cup match will be led by Amarbir Hansra.Squads for the WCL Championship games
Canada Ashish Bagai (capt), Harvir Baidwan, Damodar Daesrath, Jeremy Gordon, Ruvindu Gunasekera, Amarbir Hansra, Kenneth Kamyuka, Nitish Kumar, Usman Limbada, Salman Nazar, Henry Osinde, Hiral Patel, Raza Rehman, Junaid SiddiquiNetherlands Peter Borren (capt), Wesley Barresi, Mudassar Bukhari, Daan Van Bunge, Ben Cooper, Tim Gruijters, Timm Van Der Gugten, Ahsan Malik, Stephan Myburgh, Michael Rippon, Edgar Schiferli, Pieter Seelaar, Michael Swart, Eric SzwarczynskiSquads for the Intercontinental Cup match
Canada Amarbir Hansra (capt), Ashish Bagai, Harvir Baidwan, Damodar Daesrath, Jeremy Gordon, Ruvindu Gunasekera, Nitish Kumar, Usman Limbada, Salman Nazar, Henry Osinde, Hiral Patel, Cecil Pervez, Raza Rehman, Junaid SiddiquiNetherlands Peter Borren (capt), Wesley Barresi, Mudassar Bukhari, Daan Van Bunge, Tim Gruijters, Tom Heggelman, Vivian Kingma, Ahsan Malik, Paul Van Meekeren, Stephan Myburgh, Michael Rippon, Pieter Seelaar, Michael Swart, Eric Szwarczynski

ScorecardJim Allenby played a composed innings of 74 not out before chipping in with two wickets in a miserly spell•PA Photos

Jim Allenby has been the saviour of Glamorgan this season. He is so prized the county secured him on a new four-year contract in August; some deal for a 30-year-old. But his value was evident as he top-scored and bowled a painfully mean spell to send Glamorgan to their first showpiece final since 2000.His knees must be creaking given the weight of responsibility he has been forced to carry this year. Without his 1700 runs in all competitions, Glamorgan would have endured a miserable year. Here, he read the conditions far better than any of his colleagues with the bat and, with the ball, showed the correct length to bowl on a sluggish pitch.A 60-ball half-century gave some progress to what was for 30 overs a laboured first innings. From Allenby’s stability, Glamorgan added 81 in the final eight overs. That blitz, which included four fours and two sixes in Ben Wright’s unbeaten innings, was more like the cricket seen recently at the Ageas Bowl. Four hundred runs were scored here in the Friends Life t20 quarter-final and run-fests ensued in England internationals with New Zealand and Australia.The push gave Glamorgan a very competitive total, which they defended well, despite Hampshire’s own late surge of 71 in the final 10 overs, led by Sean Ervine, who arguably played the innings of the day by continuing to find the rope and keep Hampshire in the hunt with 54 in 51 balls. But once he holed out to long-on with 58 needed in 27 balls, the champions were dethroned.Ervine was removed by Michael Hogan – another who has made a standout contribution for Glamorgan and who they have relied on in all formats to be competitive. Having been slightly too full in his opening three overs, which conceded 20, Hogan closed out the match with full, straight bowling to end with 4 for 51.But it was Allenby who led the way with the ball, conceding only 18 runs from his eight overs and claiming the wickets of openers James Vince and Michael Roberts, who were pulling their hair out at how difficult the bowling was to manoeuvre.

Allenby praises team effort

“It was a good all-round display. We’ve prided ourselves on putting in consistent team performances and not relying on individuals to win games and that’s what we showed again today. Three or four guys chipped in with the bat and all the bowlers did a good job.
“It was a tough wicket. It was quite slow and took turn. We summed it up quicker than they did and bowled brilliantly. With Michale Hogan and Graham Wagg and our spinners we’re always going to go well. It was probably lucky that we were sent in really because it turned more as the game went on.
“A few times out there I thought I’ve got to just whack this but it would probably have gone straight up in the air. It was good to have Murray Goodwin out there to work with and Ben Wright, that is probably one of the best one-day innings you’ll see. He’s only got 40 but that changed the momentum. He’s done it quite a few times this year without the recognition so it was good for him to do it today on the big stage.
“Whoever we come up against in the final, be it Notts or Somerset. They’re going to have guys who want to be seen on TV and are competing for England squads. They’ll take the focus away from the game. If we don’t do that and stick to our roles which are very well defined this year then we’ll go well.”

The Ageas Bowl has seen some cracking wickets for one-day cricket but a slow, sticky surface was unveiled for this semi-final and the conditions were alien to hosts Hampshire, as they lost a second one-day semi-final this season. Hitherto unbeaten at home in the competition this year, and successful in seven out of eight chases in the group stage, Hampshire were unable to hunt down a target asking for just under a run a ball.Allenby was almost impossible to score off. He bowled wicket-to-wicket on a length just fuller of good. With no pace or angle to work with, the batsmen endured eight overs of largely patting the ball back up the pitch. Only one boundary came from his spell, Jimmy Adams reaching out to flick a ball from middle and off wide of deep midwicket.It was Adams who headed the pursuit. Like Allenby, he largely settled for carefully working the bowling around and it was the Hampshire captain who elected to take the batting Powerplay in the 28th over when the required rate had leaped to 10 an over.Two slog sweeps found the rope but as he attempted a third, Andrew Salter, Glamorgan’s 20-year-old offspinner, slid one on to the front pad that was somehow not given out lbw by umpire David Millns. It was the second exceptionally close lbw appeal Adams had survived. He also escaped a caught behind decision when it appeared he gloved an attempted sweep to Mark Wallace.But he rode his luck and brought up a 73-ball fifty with a leg side swat that bounced over the head of Wallace. It was cricket straight from a schoolboy fixture and matched the six-yard run-out Adams missed earlier in the day; one of three run-out chances Hampshire didn’t take in a lacklustre fielding display.Adams fell top-edging an on-side flick that went straight in the air when 76 were needed from 42 balls and it was too much for the new batsmen who followed to settle on a pitch where timing was very difficult all day, even accounting for a fairytale scenario from Dimitri Mascarenhas, playing his last game for Hampshire.It was not the swansong he had hoped for. He stood at the end of his run at the Northern End preparing to bowl the 31st over of the Glamorgan innings. But the public address delayed his shuffling few strides to the crease to announce that this would be Mascarenhas’s final over at the Ageas Bowl.He acknowledged the generous applause before sending down a typically slippery over from which only three balls were scored off. A standing ovation followed as the Hampshire faithful recognised the final sight of one of their great servants. Hampshire lost the match and a legend.

Hammad Azam, the Pakistan allrounder, has been named captain of the Under-23 side for the Asian Cricket Council Emerging Teams Cup to be held in Singapore from August 15 to 26. He will lead a 15-man squad that includes batsman Babar Azam, fast bowler Ehsan Adil and Raza Hasan, who has recovered from the spine injury he suffered last year.The announcement has been a long time coming due to the uncertainty in the PCB after the Islamabad High Court overruled all major decisions taken by interim chairman Najam Sethi and ordered for fresh elections to take place. The PCB, however, after consultation with the Attorney General of Pakistan, named the squad chosen by the three contracted selectors – Azhar Khan, Saleem Jaffar and Farrukh Zaman.Azam’s seniority made him the best choice for captain. The 22 year-old made his first-class debut in 2008 and made his international debut during the tour of the West Indies in 2011. He has played 8 ODIs and five Twenty20s so far and was also a part of the Pakistan T20 squad for the recent bilateral series in the West Indies.Hasan, who last represented Pakistan in the 2012 World T20 in Sri Lanka, suffered a disc injury during a domestic T20 game in December 2012, but returned to competitive cricket in March this year. He debuted against Australia last September and has played six T20s since, taking six wickets at 25.66. Fast bowler Adil and wicketkeeper Mohammad Rizwan, who are national contenders, have also been named in the emerging team, along with legspinner Usman Qadir.Pakistan are placed in Group A along with India U-23s, Afghanistan and Nepal. Pakistan begin their campaign against India on August 18 at Kallang Cricket Ground in Singapore. Group B features Under-23 sides from Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, along with UAE’s senior team and Singapore.Pakistan U-23 squad: Hammad Azam (capt), Umar Waheed, Babar Azam, Ehsan Adil, Raza Hasan, Umer Siddique, Usman Qadir, Usman Salahuddin, Muhammad Waqas, Bilawal Bhatti, Ruman Rais, Azeem Ghumman, Muhammad Rizwan (wk), Nasir Malik, Muhammad Nawaz
Reserve Players: Taimoor Ali, Mir Hamza, Jamal Anwar, Shahzaib Ahmed Khan, Zeeshan Ali Ashraf
Team management: Aftab Baloch (manager), Mansoor Rana (coach), Usman Ghani (Physiotherapist), Ibrar Ahmed (Trainer)