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Pakistan batsman Mohammad Yousuf who was last week banned by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) from playing for the country, has been permitted to play in a private league in Bangladesh. This comes on a day when the board reiterated that players need its permission for taking part in foreign competitions.

“PCB firmly conveys to all concerned that no player is allowed to play cricket outside Pakistan without having prior approval from the board in this regard,” the PCB statement said. “Any player interested to play cricket in any part of the world should apply to the board to seek permission for the same.”

The PCB has struck against its players with a venom unseen in recent memory, carrying out the deepest cull of a senior cricket team in many years and banning and fining seven of its top players after the side’s disastrous, winless tour of Australia. It has banned Younis Khan and Mohammad Yousuf, from playing for Pakistan in any format for an indefinite period, while handing out one-year bans to Shoaib Malik and Rana Naved-ul-Hasan. Shahid Afridi and the Akmal brothers were fined Rs2-3 million [$24,000-35,000] for various misdemeanours and put on six-month probations.

Mohammad Yousuf, Pakistan’s Test and ODI captain for the New Zealand and Australia tours, has targeted one player in the aftermath of the disastrous tour for being a particularly disruptive influence. Though he gave broad hints during a lengthy TV interview, he stopped short of revealing the name of the player.

“There is no doubt there is only one player in the team who is disturbing team unity and other players. I spoke to coach Intikhab Alam and other management about it and they agreed with me,” Yousuf told Geo Super. “I will only disclose his name to the chairman of the board, Ijaz Butt.”

Mohammad Yousuf has insisted he will stay on as captain despite Pakistan’s staggeringly unsuccessful tour of Australia. The PCB chairman had earlier called for a change in captaincy following the conclusion of the tour, but Yousuf maintained the results in Australia didn’t warrant him stepping down from his post. Pakistan’s chief of selectors, Iqbal Qasim, offered his resignation in the immediate aftermath of Pakistan’s 5-0 loss in the ODIs, but Yousuf wasn’t willing to follow suit.

Match Facts
Friday, January 29, WACA
Start time 1230 (0430 GMT)

The Big Picture
Australia’s victory in Adelaide decided the series and consigned the two matches in Perth to dead-rubber status. But like most dead rubbers, there remain several individual storylines to keep the fans interested. Can Australia make it a 5-0 whitewash? Is there anything Mohammad Yousuf can do to save his captaincy? Can Ricky Ponting find form after yet another missed pull brought him a duck in Adelaide? Will Ryan Harris make himself a permanent ODI player or was his five-for a one-off? And will the Perth fans turn up to two games in three days, neither of which has any bearing on the series result?

Australia produced a commanding all-round performance to take a 2-0 lead with a 140-run demolition of Pakistan at the SCG. After being led by Shane Watson and Cameron White in their 6 for 267, the hosts delivered a stinging bowling display to knock over the tourists for 127 in 37.3 overs.

Pakistan lost their first five wickets for 42 in an awful opening and the result added further to the troubles of the captain Mohammad Yousuf, who is being replaced after the series. Yousuf had mistakenly chosen to bowl first in the hope of getting an advantage from the overcast conditions in the afternoon, but all the support came for the fast men as the sun started to go down. The ball seamed and bounced dangerously for Doug Bollinger, Peter Siddle and Clint McKay and the tourists could not cope.

Mohammad Yousuf has cranked up the tension with Pakistan’s selection committee by questioning its refusal to allow Younis Khan to come and bolster Pakistan’s Test squad in Australia. Yousuf and the on-tour team management had made repeated requests from as early as the first Test in Melbourne to send Younis over, because they were concerned over the flimsiness of their batting line.

After much dithering the request was eventually turned down, with the selectors asking Younis to recapture some form in domestic cricket instead. Yousuf, having already overseen a series of batting collapses through New Zealand and Australia, was particularly incensed after Pakistan stumbled to 94 for 4 at the end of the second day on a pristine surface at Bellerive Oval in Hobart.

Simon Katich has been passed fit and will take his place in the third Test in Hobart starting on Thursday after surviving a long net session on Monday and further training on Tuesday. Katich missed the Sydney Test with an elbow injury and the opener Phillip Hughes took his spot, but has now been released from the squad following Katich’s progress.

“I wasn’t hampered at all so it’s amazing what a week can do,” Katich told reporters after Monday’s training. “The pain subsided, the swelling has gone down, and it feels good again.”

Pakistan will hope to pick up the pieces from the traumatic Sydney defeat as they build-up to what will now be a dead rubber at Hobart, where the best they can do is avoid a fourth successive whitewash at the hands of Australia.

The squad has taken the 36-run loss hard and Mohammad Yousuf, the captain, has been trying since to lift the side for the final Test, which begins on January 14. “The team was very, very disappointed after Sydney,” Yousuf told Cricinfo.

Pakistan coach Intikhab Alam has called for separate teams for Twenty20 internationals as a possible means of arresting his side’s current decline in the Test format. Intikhab echoed the comments made by captain Mohammad Yousuf after Pakistan’s defeat in Melbourne, when he said the players in the Test squad were struggling to adapt to the format largely due to volume of Twenty20 cricket they played.

When asked if a separate team for the Twenty20 format was the way to go, Intikhab told the News: “I think we will have to do that. If you play too much Twenty20 cricket then it becomes almost impossible for you to have the sort of patience and temperament that you need to shine in Test matches.