On Saturday, Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) announced the 20-player squad to fly for Manchester, England on a chartered flight on Sunday morning for a three-Test and three T20I series to be played in August and September.
“This was a challenging and unprecedented process that we have conducted and I am pleased that following the second round of testing, we are able to confirm 20 players and 11 player support personnel will travel to Manchester on Sunday,” PCB CEO Wasim Khan said.
18 players from 29-player squad, which PCB announced earlier this month have also been tested negative in the second round of testing. Besides this 18 players, reserve players Bilal Asif, Musa Khan and Mohammad Nawaz along with the newly added name to the squad Rohail Nazir have also tested negative. Amongst the four reserves players, who were tested on Wednesday, only Imran Butt has tested positive.
Fast bowler Musa Khan and Pakistan U19 captain and wicketkeeper Rohail Nazir will also travel for England. The first group of traveller for England are:
Players: Azhar Ali (captain), Babar Azam (vice-captain), Abid Ali, Asad Shafiq, Faheem Ashraf, Fawad Alam, Iftikhar Ahmad, Imad Wasim, Imam-ul-Haq, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Abbas, Musa Khan, Naseem Shah, Rohail Nazir, Sarfaraz Ahmed, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Shan Masood, Sohail Khan, Usman Shinwari and Yasir Shah.
*Zafar Gohar, the left-arm spinner who played an ODI in 2015, will join the side from England and will only be involved in pre-match preparations.
Player support personnel: Mansoor Rana (manager), Misbah-ul-Haq (head coach), Younis Khan (batting coach), Mushtaq Ahmed (spin bowling coach), Shahid Aslam (assistant coach), Abdul Majeed (fielding coach), Talha Butt (team analyst), Yasir Malik (strength and conditioning coach), Dr Sohail Saleem (team doctor), Lt Col (retd) Usman Riffat (security manager) and Raza Kitchlew (media and digital content manager).
Cliffe Deacon and Waqar Younis will join the side directly from South Africa and Australia, respectively, while Shoaib Malik is expected to travel around 24 July.
Upon arrival in Manchester, the squad will be transported to Worcestershire where they will undergo the England and Wales Cricket Board testing before completing their 14-day isolation period, during which they will be allowed to train and practice. The side will move to Derbyshire on 13 July.
Out of the 10 players and one official, who had earlier tested positive in the first round of testing, six players Fakhar Zaman, Mohammad Hasnain, Mohammad Hafeez, Mohammad Rizwan, Shadab Khan and Wahab Riaz have tested negative in the retests.
The six players who have now tested negative will undergo a third round of testing at some stage next week and they will be sent to England as soon as their two tests return negative.
Players who have again tested positive are Haider Ali, Haris Rauf, Kashif Bhatti and Imran Khan, along with Malang Ali (masseur).
