Mohd Yousuf suffers hamstring injury before SA series

Mon, Oct 18 10 11:50 PM

Karachi, Oct 18 (PTI) Pakistan former captain and senior batsman Muhammad Yousuf has suffered a hamstring strain just five days before the national team leaves for Abu Dhabi to play against South Africa. Pakistan coach Waqar Younis said that Yousuf had strained his hamstring and had been advised three days rest from the training camp currently underway in Lahore. "He should be okay in three days time but for the moment he has been told to rest," Waqar said. Yousuf surprisingly not only captained Lahore Lions to the national T20 championship title on Saturday but was also declared best fielder of the tournament. Waqar said that rest of the players were fine and training hard in the camp. "Our priority in the camp is to focus on improving our fielding which has not been up to required standards in recent series," Waqar said. The former skipper said that he was disappointed by Pakistan''s catching and overall fielding in the recent series in England. "The catching really let us down and what is disappointing for me is that I saw the same poor fielding standards with a few exceptions here and there in the national T20 championship," he said. "To beat a top well drilled outfit like South Africa the fielding and catching has to be 100 per cent," he added. Waqar said fielding could only improve in the national team when lot of attention and detail was paid to it in domestic cricket. "Unfortunately in domestic cricket fielding is not given the priority it deserves," he added. Pakistan manager Intikhab Alam said that since Pakistan would be playing a "home" series against South Africa in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, the pitches for the matches specially for the Tests were being prepared under the guidance of the PCB curators. "Our curators are giving guidelines for the preparation of pitches but the work is being done by the local curators," he added. He didn''t elaborate on whether Pakistan aimed to prepare a spin trap for South Africa in the Tests and even ODIs as they had included three specialist spinners in their Test squad including Danish Kaneria, Abdul Rehman and Saeed Ajmal. PTI Cor ATK

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