Saeed Ajmal Withdraws from Pakistan World Cup Squad – 28th Dec

Pakistan offspinner Saeed Ajmal has made the tough decision of withdrawing from Pakistan’s World Cup squad after he acknowledged that his bowling action needs further remedial work before it will be cleared by the ICC with an official retesting. Ajmal had been included in Pakistan’s 30 man probables squad for the 2015 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand which begins in early February.

The final 15 man squads have to be confirmed by January 7 but Ajmal will not be a part of that squad since he will be continuing his remedial work on his action with Saqlain Mushtaq in Lahore.



“Ajmal withdrew himself,” Shaharyar Khan, the PCB chairman, said. “We didn’t want to take a risk with Ajmal’s career because latest reports suggested his elbow extension was not still within the 15 degrees allowed by the ICC despite all the remedial work on his action.

“We were aware that if he took the official ICC test in a bid to make the World Cup squad and failed it he could be suspended from playing for one to two years and that would mean the end of his career.”

“The PCB committee discussed the future course of action to be adopted with regard to Ajmal and Hafeez and agreed that in the case of Ajmal, further remedial work should continue in collaboration with Saqlain and a bio-mechanist in Lahore. The group was informed that significant progress had been made by Ajmal who is now working on completing his mileage with the remodelled action which shall soon be accomplished. It was noted that Saqlain and Mushtaq Ahmed have both worked with Hafeez and his action should now be unofficially tested in Chennai next week.”