Veteran middle order batsman Misbah-ul-Haq has returned to the national team after a lapse of four months with the added responsibility of leading the team in the two test match series against South Africa in the UAE next month.
The 36-year-old was left out of the national team after his unimpressive show in the T20 World Championship where Pakistan lost in the semi-finals.
Misbah was for the time, the only choice available to lead the national team for the series as the majority of the players in the fifteen member squad were either establishing or re-establishing themselves in international cricket.
Misbah will lead the side in the absence of Salman Butt who led the team admirably in England by winning two out of the five tests under him.
Butt has been ruled out of the South African series as he is suspended from international cricket for his alleged involvement in spot-fixing during and before the English tour.
He along with pacers Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Aamer are fighting a legal battle to save their careers and would have their appeal case hearing on the 30th and 31st of this month - right when the ODI series against the Proteas would take place.
Meanwhile, the squad includes many surprises including the return of opener Taufeeq Umar after a gap of 4 years. The left hander was touted as the next great thing after a string of good scores in top flight cricket including two hundreds against the Proteas.
One of those hundreds came in South Africa during the 2002-03 tour when the hosts won a two test series 2-0.
His career like most Pakistani batsmen of modern times tapered off and he was dropped from the team after the 2006 tour of England.
Since then, Taufeeq has been a recluse in the national setup. This tour gives the Lahore born batsman the opportunity to cement his spot in the national team.
Taufeeq Umar will partner Imran Farhat at the top of the innings, in what would be a re-union of a partnership that was involved in three successive 100 plus stands in the ODI series against New Zealand in 2002.
The two have combined well with each other even in the longest format of the game and had the shades of the legendary opening duo of Saeed Anwar and Aamer Sohail in them.
Also making a comeback in the test fold are bowlers Mohammad Sami and Abdul Rehman.
Sami was unlucky to miss the UK tour despite an impressive spell in the only test match that he featured in Australia.
The pace bowler from Karachi sent the top three Aussie batsmen packing within the space of his first six overs in the second test of the disastrous tour down under earlier in the year.
In the second innings of the same match where Pakistan snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, Sami had a simple chance floored by wicket-keeper Kamran Akmal.
The talented yet inconsistent pace bowler was part of the team for the T20 World Cup in the Caribbean. He failed to cement his spot in the staring eleven with Pakistan relying on as many as four spinners in the last stage of that tournament.
The two match series against South Africa is another acid test for the Pakistan cricket team and one hopes that the team would succeed in putting up a decent fight against one of the top ranked test nations in the world.
