Confident Pakistan leaves to face New Zealand

LAHORE: Pakistan's 16-man cricket squad left for Dubai early Friday with coach Intikhab Alam confident his team can beat New Zealand in the limited-over series.

Pakistan will play three one-day internationals on November 3, 6, 9 in Abu Dhabi and two Twenty20 internationals on November 12 and 13 in Dubai, in a series relocated to the United Arab Emirates over security fears.

'Confidence is high and if we play to our potential we can win the series,' Alam told reporters at Lahore airport.

'We have been doing well in one-day cricket and I hope the good work will continue.'

Younus Khan leads the one-day squad, while all-rounder Shahid Afridi will take over for the Twenty20 internationals.

Also leaving the squad after the one-day matches will be opener Salman Butt, Mohammad Yousuf and Wahab Riaz. Imran Nazir, Fawad Alam and Sohail Tanveer will join the 15-man Twenty20 squad.

After the UAE series, Pakistan will fly to New Zealand for three Tests. The series was also originally scheduled to be held in Pakistan but relocated after their rivals refused to tour owing to the security fears.

Younus will return to lead the Test squad.

One-day squad: Younus Khan (capt), Salman Butt, Imran Farhat, Khalid Latif, Mohammad Yousuf, Shoaib Malik, Shahid Afridi, Abdul Razzaq, Umer Akmal, Kamran Akmal, Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, Saeed Ajmal, Umar Gul, Mohammad Aamir, Rao Iftikhar, Wahab Riaz.