Karachi

Pakistan have recalled all-rounder Azhar Mahmood for the remaining four one-day internationals in South Africa after being faced with an injury crisis. Mahmood (31) has not played for Pakistan since February 2005 against Australia in Sydney and he replaces bowler Shabbir Ahmed, who has returned home with a groin injury after playing in just the Twenty20 international match last week.

Fit-again all-rounder Abdul Razzaq and hard-hitting Shahid Afridi were recalled on Saturday for Pakistan’s five-match one-day series against South Africa starting early next month. Also back in the 17-man squad is lanky fast bowler Shabbir Ahmed, whose one-year ban over an illegal bowling action ended last month.

Former cricket greats on Tuesday hailed Pakistan’s comeback win over South Africa, a victory described as the ”best ever” by captain Inzamam-ul-Haq. Led admirably by Inzamam, Pakistan achieved a comprehensive five-wicket win over Graeme Smith-led Proteas on the fourth day of the second Test at Port Elizabeth on Monday to level the three-match series at 1-1.

Pakistan fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar has been ruled out of action for two weeks with a hamstring injury and will take no further part in the Test series in South Africa, an official said on Monday. Akhtar played his first Test in 11 months at Port Elizabeth last week and took four wickets in South Africa’s first innings.

Pakistani cricket authorities have decided to rush fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar to South Africa to join the team before the first Test in Johannesburg, which starts on Thursday. Akhtar, who was last month cleared of a doping offence, was being sent to South Africa as young fast bowler Umar Gul had been ruled out for two to three weeks with an ankle injury.

Pakistan have lost batsman Mohammad Yousuf and all-rounder Shoaib Malik for the first Test against South Africa while fast bowler Umar Gul is also a doubt, a Pakistan Cricket Board official said on Monday. Saleem Altaf, director cricket operations, said Malik had been ruled out with a knee injury while Yousuf would miss the first Test to be with his pregnant wife.

Pakistan on Friday announced a 17-man squad to play three Test matches on their tour of South Africa starting next month. The team for one Twenty20 and five one-day internationals which follow the Tests would be named later, the Pakistan Cricket Board announced.

Pakistan all-rounder Abdul Razzaq has been ruled out of the first two Tests in South Africa because of fitness concerns and appears likely to miss the entire series, a Pakistan Cricket Board official said on Friday. Razzaq injured a calf muscle in the final one-day international against the West Indies in Karachi on December 16.

Mohammad Hafeez scored an undefeated 57 to give Pakistan a lead of 174 runs at close of play on the third day of the final Test against the West Indies on Wednesday. Pakistan reached 130-2 after plodding along in the final two sessions, having bowled out West Indies for 260 runs at the stroke of lunch for a first-innings lead of 44.

West Indies opener Daren Ganga played a lone hand of 77 to keep his team alive in the third and final Test against Pakistan on Tuesday. Ganga steered West Indies to 191-6 at the close on day two with a defiant and unbeaten knock on a slow, low bouncing pitch on which Umar Gul and Danish Kaneria took six wickets.

Pakistan captain Inzamam-ul-Haq has described the pitch for the third and final Test against West Indies as substandard. Pakistan were 265 for eight on the second day after struggling to 257 for seven on day one despite a hundred from Mohammad Yousuf.

England has conveyed to Pakistan it wants the International Cricket Council to intervene in a compensation dispute arising from the forfeited Oval Test after the two countries failed to reach an agreement. ”The England and Wales Cricket Board in their latest letter, have informed us they are going to the ICC,” said Pakistan Cricket Board director of operations Saleem Altaf.

Former Pakistan Cricket Board chairperson Shaharyar Khan has blamed poor education among players for Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif failing drugs tests. Shoaib and Asif were recalled from the Champions Trophy in India on Monday after becoming the first cricketers to test positive for the banned steroid nandrolone.

Pakistan captain Inzamam ul-Haq’s disciplinary hearing is likely to be held on September 27 or 28, a Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) source said on Monday. ”The ICC [International Cricket Council] has indicated to us about the proposed dates for the hearing. They will make a formal announcement themselves,” the source said.

Pakistan have asked the International Cricket Council (ICC) to hold an inquiry into umpire Darrell Hair’s conduct in the Oval Test before captain Inzamam-ul-Haq’s disciplinary hearing. After the cancellation of the ICC board meeting in Dubai on September 2, the Pakistan Cricket Board has written a letter demanding an urgent investigation into Australian Hair’s conduct during the fiasco.

Pakistani police have registered a blasphemy case against Danish cartoonists and some European newspapers over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that sparked worldwide protests this year, they said on Wednesday. Internet search engines Google.com and Yahoo.com were also named in the complaint filed by Iqbal Haider, an activist of a small political party, police said.

Relatives on Wednesday began burying the dead from a suspected suicide bombing at a religious gathering in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi as the death toll rose to at least 57. Police and paramilitary forces were put on high alert after the blast blew up dozens of people — including top leaders of a religious organisation, Jamaat-e-Ahle Sunnat.

Upbeat Pakistan cricket captain Inzamam-ul-Haq said his team are confident of winning a series in the West Indies for the first time as they flew out to the Caribbean early on Wednesday. Pakistan are on a high after their tour of India where they squared a three-match Test series 1-1 and won a six-match one-day series 4-2.

A fire broke out on a tanker belonging to the Pakistan navy at a dock in the southern port city of Karachi on Thursday, and relief officials said at least 60 people — most of them sailors — were injured in the blaze. A naval doctor said he fears many others are trapped on the ship.

Two successive car bombs exploded near the residence of the United States consul general in the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi on Wednesday, injuring at least 15 people, police said. The second, more powerful, blast occurred as police and security officials were investigating the first explosion.
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A powerful bomb exploded at a Shiite Muslim mosque packed with worshippers in the southern port city of Karachi on Friday, killing at least 14 people and wounding scores of others in a suspected suicide attack, police and hospital officials said. Bits of flesh and pools of blood lay all around as rescue workers tended to the wounded.

Five policemen and one gunman were killed on Sunday in an armed attack on a police station by up to a dozen people in the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi, officers said. They said the gunmen, riding in two or three cars, went to the police station in an eastern district of Karachi and sprayed bullets at the premises.