Gul ruled out of third Test

Pakistan's hopes of testing the Indian batting line-up again in the final Test at Rawalpindi suffered a blow when Umar Gul, the Man of the Match at Lahore, was ruled out with a back injury. Also missing from the 17-man squad were Shabbir Ahmed, Moin Khan and Abdul Razzaq. All three haven't recovered from the injuries which kept them out of the second Test - Shabbir has shin problems, Razzaq has a back strain, while Moin has a groin injury.

Rao Iftikhar Anjum, Fazl-e-Akbar, Abdur Rauf and Rana Naved-ul-Hasan - all right-arm seamers - were named as replacements. Naved played one match in the ODI series against India, while Anjum was part of the squad, but didn't play a single game.

Announcing the squad, Wasim Bari, the chairman of selectors, admitted that he was worried about the injuries to key players, but insisted that the replacements had the capability to fill the breach. "I am confident that the boys will put this [the injuries] behind them and display the same standard of cricket that earned them victory by nine wickets in the second Test." The 17-member squad will be pruned down to 15 by the team management on Sunday [April 11].

Squad
Inzamam-ul-Haq (capt), Taufeeq Umar, Imran Nazir, Imran Farhat, Yasir Hameed, Yousuf Youhana, Asim Kamal, Misbah-ul-Haq, Kamran Akmal (wk), Shoaib Akhtar, Mohammad Sami, Danish Kaneria, Shoaib Malik, Rao Iftikhar Anjum, Fazl-e-Akbar, Abdur Rauf, Rana Naved-ul-Hasan.