Karachi: The Pakistan captain, Shoaib Malik, and the three-member national selection committee, headed by Salahuddin Ahmed, have been feuding over three players for quite some time.

According to The Telegraph’s sources, the players in question are Younis Khan, Shahid Afridi and Kamran Akmal.

While the selectors, apparently, have been resisting Malik’s plea to drop Younis and Afridi, the captain’s choice — Akmal — got dropped for the ongoing Asia Cup.

“Relations between the captain and the selectors are strained... Malik’s agenda is to have his men in the team,” one of the sources pointed out.

That all is not well was indicated by Malik himself, the other day, when he told a media conference that he just didn’t have the final say in the selection of the XI at home.

Meanwhile, the Asia Cup’s technical committee has okayed Abdur Rauf as the injured Umar Gul’s replacement. Gul is out for at least a fortnight.