ST LUCIA - Misbah-ul-Haq, the Pakistan captain, will replace Australia's Luke Pomersbach in the St Lucia Zouks side for the inaugural Caribbean Premier League season. Pomersbach has been forced to pull out of the tournament, which begins next week, on compassionate leave. Misbah will enter the competition fresh from a Man-of-the-Series performance in the one-day series against West Indies, which ended on Wednesday.
"Although it is unfortunate that Luke Pomersbach will not be joining us, we have a high-quality replacement in Misbah-ul-Haq," Matthew Maynard, the Zouks assistant coach, said. "He brings with him a vast amount of experience of international cricket, something that will only be of benefit to our younger players, and his latest Twenty20 performance speaks for itself. On top of that he has been in excellent form during the recent ODI series against West Indies so he is completely acclimatised and match-ready and that is an added plus for us and for him."
Misbah, who led Faisalabad Wolves to victory in Pakistan's Super Eight T-20 Cup in March, will join Darren Sammy and Tino Best, as well as overseas players Herschelle Gibbs, Albie Morkel and Tamim Iqbal at the Zouks. He was the highest run-getter in the recently concluded series against West Indies, with 260 runs in five ODIs, including four fifties.
Meanwhile, Shahid Afridi's return to form has made him a popular choice for T20 cricket once again with the St Lucia team in the upcoming Caribbean Premier League (CPL) offering a late contract to flamboyant Pakistan all-rounder.
Afridi confirmed from St Lucia that he had been made an offer to play in the CPL that begins from July 30th although he was not in the list of overseas signings. "I am going through the contract and will see how it goes but I would love to play in such a big tournament because it is the first time they are having a professional T20 league with foreign participation in the West Indies," he said.
The St Lucia team offered the contract to Afridi on the recommendation of captain Darren Sammy. Six teams are taking part in the CPL with Pakistan's T20 captain M Hafeez, opener Ahmed Shahzad and Shoaib Malik already signed up to play for different regional teams in the league.
Afridi, who made a comeback to the national team for the tour of West Indies, returned to form in the series won by Pakistan as he finished with 10 wickets and also played two good innings including a blistering 76 in the first match.
The former captain said he was happy to finally show some form for his team and if he played in the Caribbean league it would prepare him for the forthcoming tour to Zimbabwe. "These days I have decided to focus a lot on my batting as I realise now my fans and supporters expect a lot from me when I go out to bat," he said.
"In the past few years because of team requirements I had focused a lot on improving my bowling but I am now paying a lot of attention to my batting and spending lot of time in the nets," he said.
Afridi said it felt good to be part of a winning team after Pakistan clinched the five match one-day series 3-1. The Caribbean Premier League starts on July 30 in Barbados and concludes on August 24 in Trinidad.