Yousuf keen on playing his last World Cup

Karachi: Pakistan's former captain and senior batsman Mohammed Yousuf has expressed disappointment at the treatment being meted out to him by the national selectors but stopped short of announcing retirement plans.

Mohammad Yousuf: “I am in form and I am fit, what more can I do to convince them I should play for Pakistan?”

Yousuf told the media while playing a match of the national one-day championship in Karachi for Lahore that he was disappointed at not being picked for the one-day series in New Zealand .


"I don't know what the criteria of the selectors for selecting someone are. I am in form and I am fit, what more can I do to convince them I should play for Pakistan?" Yousuf asked.

The national selectors did not consider him for the ODIs in New Zealand but have named him in the preliminary list of 30 players for the World Cup.

But sources close to the selectors say that they are not convinced that Yousuf is 100 percent match fit for a major tournament like the World Cup.

But Yousuf, who scored 63 for Lahore on Sunday, said if he wasn’t match fit, he would not be playing in domestic cricket.

"I had some problem with a strained muscle while touring UAE for the South Africa series but now I have made a complete recovery. An unfit batsman cannot take three and two runs regularly during his innings," he said while referring to his innings.

Yousuf said that at times he was so upset with the attitude of the selectors who felt that he should never have come out of retirement.
"In Pakistan it has become like a ''Sunnat'' (good deed) for selectors to drop and sideline senior players who are at their peak."

Yousuf, 36, who has twice announced retirements in his career spanning 90 Tests and 288 ODIs, said he was batting well and knew he could still serve Pakistan cricket.

"I just hope they give me a shot at the World Cup because I know I can do a lot this time for the team in the tournament. It has been my dream to win the World Cup," Yousuf added.

He said it was the ambition of every player to go out with a bang and if he got a chance to play in the World Cup he would definitely think seriously about calling it a day from international cricket.

The selectors included Yousuf in the World Cup preliminary squad on the insistence of one-day captain, Shahid Afridi who believes that the senior batsman has a strong role to play in the World Cup in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh from February 19.