With Pakistan's upcoming tour of Zimbabwe, one would have hoped that facing a rather weak opponent would translate into youngsters being given a chance. Instead, the selectors seemed to have more faith in the tried and tested.

 "We want to give youngsters a chance" is the statement that we keep hearing from the selectors.

Very well said gentlemen, a good decision and about time too we all agreed.

The youth policy is a must, providing it is well planned, well managed and has some sort of continuity and consistency to it.

Bring in too many youngsters and the team could crumble, have too many "oldies" and that stems the flow of younsgters developing their game and testing themselves in international cricket, so it's absolutely imperative that the youth policy is carefully managed.

However for some unexplainable reason, the selection committee seem to be operating a youth policy that is flawed and rather haphazard and lacks a clear plan.

Sadaf Hussain, Hammad Azam and Usman Salahuddin are all youngsters who were selected in recent times for Pakistan. Usman and Hammad have had limited opportunities and Sadaf has had no opportunity at all to play for Pakistan as yet. All three were identified as players of the future.....yet a couple of months later, and all three have been discarded.

So when the selectors announced the squad for Zimbabwe today, one would have expected the aforementioned youngsters to be given a fair chance to shine and at least an opportunity to show what they can do. However all three were dropped from the squad and not even named in the reserves list....now what sort of youth policy is this?

What is the thinking behind picking a youngster for one or two series, letting him collect a few air miles and then discarding him for no apparent reason? Exactly what sort of planning is this?

If you are going to select a youngster, then at least give him a decent chance to show his credentials, at least select him in a few series to give him the opportunity to establish himself in international cricket and show what he is made of.

If after a decent chance the youngster fails to deliver, yes, move on and select someone else, but it seems that at the moment the youth policy is a rather impatient one, where players can find themselves discarded despite not getting a proper chance.

Zimbabwe are a poor side and Pakistan could more or less have picked any first class players and they would have beaten Zimbabwe, but what exactly is the point of the likes of Imran Farhat being recalled to the side, ahead of the likes of Usman Salahuddin and Sharjeel Khan. What exactly will Imran Farhat prove to the selectors that they don't already know about him. How will picking Farhat help the future of Pakistani cricket?

Instead of picking the likes of Farhat, why not give youth a chance to establish themselves against an opposition that they could shine against and gain self belief and confidence from.

Sadly this youth policy seems to be a rather confused and mystifying policy!