Younis to meet Butt next week

Younis Khan, the Pakistan captain, will meet the national board chairman Ijaz Butt next week to discuss his fitness and availability for the one-dayers against New Zealand in Dubai in November.

Younis had fractured a finger just before the ICC Champions Trophy in September, and missed the first game against West Indies before captaining Pakistan for rest of the campaign despite not fully recovering from the fracture.

"Younis knows best about his injury," Wasim Bari, the PCB chief operating officer, told Pakistan's News. "He would be meeting us next week after which it will be decided whether he would be playing in the series against New Zealand."

Shahid Afridi will lead the team in the Twenty20s, a format from which Younis had retired. There were media reports suggesting Afridi will take over in the ODIs against New Zealand, but Afridi denied he had been offered the captaincy. "There is no truth in such reports," he said. "I had a meeting with the PCB chairman in which a number of issues were discussed but captaincy wasn't one of them."

Afridi also said he expected Younis to be fully fit in time for the New Zealand series. "I'm expecting Younis to get fit in the next two weeks," he said. "It would be great for us because he is really a good captain and we enjoy playing under him."