Pakistan call up Umar Akmal and Wahab Riaz for New Zealand tour

They are two of seven players named by Mazher Majeed in an excerpt from the News of the World sting that was broadcast this week on the Pakistani channel Geo TV, having been previously seen only by the newspaper, the police and the International Cricket Council.

“I’ll tell you who we’ve got then,” Majeed is heard saying. “We’ve got Umar Akmal, Kamran Akmal, Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Asif, Salman Butt, Wahab Riaz … that’s six, yeah? Imran Farhat … that’s seven out of 11 players.”

Of the other five named, three – Amir, Asif and Butt, the former captain – have been suspended by the ICC, and neither Farhat nor the wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal have been selected since Pakistan’s summer tour of England.

But both Umar Akmal – the 20-year-old younger brother of Kamran – and Riaz were involved in the one-day and Test series that Pakistan recently completed against South Africa in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, when the scandal took another twist as Zulqarnain Haider fled to London alleging that he had received threats from bookmakers.

Now the pair have been included in the squads for a three-match Twenty20 series against New Zealand that begins on Boxing Day in Auckland, and the two Tests that follow in Hamilton and Wellington.

Pakistan, who have yet to respond to the latest video, must also name a 30-man provisional squad for the World Cup that starts next February within the next fortnight – and an ICC spokesman said that while investigations continue into the spot-fixing scandal, “any decision Pakistan make on their World Cup squad is in their domain only”.

In the same video, Majeed names four players who are not involved: the Twenty20 captain Shahid Afridi, the off-spinner Saeed Ajmal – who is described as “too religious”, the experienced all-rounder Abdul Razzaq, and Younis Khan, another veteran who was recently recalled to the squad after a suspension was lifted, and has signed to play for Warwickshire next summer.

All four are in the squad for New Zealand, when the Test team will again be captained by Misbah-ul-Haq. But Kamran Akmal and Shoaib Malik, the former captain who has also been omitted, further muddied the waters today by demanding an explanation for their exclusion.

Mohsin Khan, the former opener who has been Pakistan’s chief selector since March, has reportedly claimed that Kamran, Shoaib and Danish Kaneria, the leg-spinner who is another notable omission, have not been cleared by the Pakistan Cricket Board.

“I am disappointed at being left out because I forwarded an email from the ICC to the PCB last month that cleared my name for selection,” Kamran said. “So I should know why I was excluded.”

Malik said: “I have performed well in the domestic season, and throughout my 11-year career I have never been involved in any wrongdoing and was not even in the team when all those [spot-fixing] allegations were levelled.”