ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan fast bowler Naseem Shah will return to red-ball cricket following a 13-month absence after the selectors named a 17-member squad on Wednesday for this month’s home test series against Bangladesh.
Shah missed the series against Australia earlier this year after he injured his right shoulder during the 2023 Asia Cup and required surgery.
Rawalpindi will host the first test from Aug. 21-25 while the second test will be played in Karachi from Aug. 30-Sept. 3.
The Pakistan Cricket Board said Bangladesh will arrive on Aug. 17 for the two-match series which is part of ICC’s World Test Championship.
Shan Masood is to captain Pakistan while middle-order batter Saud Shakeel was named vice-captain in place of Shaheen Shah Afridi.
The selectors recalled fast bowler Mohammad Ali, who last played against England in 2022, while uncapped batters Muhammad Hurraira and Kamran Ghulam were rewarded for their outstanding performances in domestic cricket.
Opening batter Imam-ul-Haq, all-rounder Faheem Ashraf, left-arm spinners Mohammad Nawaz and Noman Ali and off-spinner Sajid Khan, who toured Australia earlier this year, were dropped while fast bowlers Mohammad Wasim and Hasan Ali were not considered due to injuries.
Meanwhile, political unrest in Bangladesh has delayed the departure of its 'A' team to Pakistan. The side was due to arrive in Islamabad on Wednesday for two four-day games and three 50-over matches against Pakistan Shaheens.
The PCB has confirmed that Bangladesh 'A' will now arrive on Saturday and will wrap up the tour with the third and final 50-over game on Aug. 30. Islamabad will be hosting all the matches.
Pakistan squad for test series: Shan Masood (captain), Saud Shakeel, Aamir Jamal (subject to fitness), Abdullah Shafique, Abrar Ahmed, Babar Azam, Kamran Ghulam, Khurram Shahzad, Mir Hamza, Mohammad Ali, Muhammad Hurraira, Mohammad Rizwan, Naseem Shah, Saim Ayub, Agha Salman, Sarfaraz Ahmed, Shaheen Shah Afridi.
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FILE -Pakistan's Naseem Shah prepares to bowl his next delivery during the ICC Men's T20 World Cup cricket match between Pakistan and Canada at the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium in Westbury, New York, June 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger, File)
A judge barred the Trump administration on Thursday from immediately moving to shut down a small federal agency that supports investment in African countries on Thursday.
U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon in Washington issued the order hours after the filing of a lawsuit by the president and CEO of the U.S. African Development Foundation.
Ward Brehm said in a complaint that he directed his staff on Wednesday to deny building entry to staffers from billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and Pete Marocco, the deputy administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development.
DOGE and Trump do not have the authority to shut down the agency, which was created by Congress, Brehm said in the complaint.
The order from Leon, who was appointed by Republican President George W. Bush, bars Brehm from being removed or DOGE from adding members to the board over the next few days.
Brehm also said that days after President Donald Trump targeted the agency in a Feb. 19 executive order that aims to shrink the size of the federal government, staffers from DOGE tried to access the organization's computer systems.
“When USADF learned that DOGE was there to kill the agency, USADF staff refused DOGE access to cancel all grants and contracts,” said the complaint, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington.
White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in a statement, “Entitled, rogue bureaucrats have no authority to defy executive orders by the President of the United States or physically bar his representatives from entering the agencies they run.”
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Trump administration mandated DOGE and Musk, the world’s richest man whose businesses have federal contracts, to root out waste, fraud and abuse and to help reduce the nation’s debt load.
Brehm said in his complaint that DOGE and Marocco, a Trump political appointee helping shutter USAID, also recently targeted the Inter-American Foundation, a federal agency that invests in Latin American and the Caribbean.
On Tuesday, DOGE said on X that all but one employee at IAF had been let go and its grants cancelled, including funding for alpaca farming in Peru, for vegetable gardens in El Salvador and for beekeeping in Brazil.
Trump is also targeting the U.S. Institute of Peace, a Washington-based think tank, and the Presidio Trust, which oversees a national park site next to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Both entities, which were created by Congress, continue to operate and say they are compiling information requests from the White House.
The National Endowment for Democracy, a private nonprofit that helps combat authoritarianism around the world, sued the Trump administration on Tuesday, saying in a complaint that it had been denied access to its funding, “something that has never occurred before in the Endowment’s forty-two-year existence.”
In 2023, it reported issuing $238 million in grants, including through the International Republican Institute, where Secretary of State Marco Rubio formerly served as a board member.
Associated Press writer Lindsay Whitehurst contributed to this story.
Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and non-profits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
Elon Musk departs the Capitol following a meeting with Senate Republicans, in Washington, Wednesday, March 5, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
