"He could be as good as Wasim Akram who used to come down the order and whack the ball over the rope to help add some useful runs for his team when needed," he said on Tuesday.

Whatmore added that he was planning to turn his bowlers into useful late-order batsmen by giving them extra batting lessons when the Tigers return home from Pakistan.

"I'm thinking of hiring a batting coach to train the bowlers. They need to bat a little bit and score some runs.

And negotiations are in progress with an Australian specialist now working at the Sri Lankan Cricket Academy," he revealed.

TWO BECOMES FIVEPakistan made not two changes but five for the third Test. On Tuesday the team management said that only off-spinner Saqlain Mushtaq and batsman Younis Khan would be replacing speedster Shoaib Akhtar and injured all-rounder Shoaib Malik.

But just before the start of play at the Multan Cricket Stadium, it was decided that three players would make their Test debuts for Pakistan.

So, in a simple ceremony opener Salman Butt, middle order batsman Farhan Adil and medium paceman Yasir Ali all received their green caps from chief selector Aamir Sohail.

Butt, the 19-year-old Lahore left-hander, has toured South Africa as a member the Pakistan cricket academy team. In five matches he scored a double century and a hundred. Fellow academy player Ali was rewarded after taking 23 wickets on the tour.

The right-arm paceman is also the only one of the trio without any first-class experience.

So far, seven Pakistanis have made their debut in the three-match Test series.

Opener Mohammad Hafeez, middle-order batsman Yasir Hameed, and right-arm seamers Umar Gul and Shabbir Ahmed all played in first Test held in Karachi.

FIVE MEDICAL STUDENTSFive Bangladeshi medical students, studying in Multan and Bhawalpur under different scholarship programmes, came to support the Tigers on the first day.

Dr Mohiul Islam Kabir and Dr Sirajul Islam, both internees at Bhawalpur Medical College, which is nearly 90 kilometres away from Multan, are the senior members of the group.

Kabir hails from Sirajganj district while Siraj comes from Rangpur. Brothers Abu Mohammad Hasan and Abu Abdullah Hossain are from Comilla and both study at the National Medical College in Multan.

Hasan is in his fifth-year and Hossain is a second-year student. Third-year student Shahriar Kabir also studies in Multan.

There are as many as 20 Bangladeshi medical students studying in Pakistan. Ten are in Bhawalpur alone, three in Multan and Karachi respectively. The others can be found in Rawalpindi and Faisalabad.

WELCOME BACK INZY! Believe it or not, local hero Inzamamul Haq is playing only his second match at the Multan Cricket Stadium and that too was against Bangladesh.

Inzamam whose ancestral home is a 20-minute drive from the stadium, made his first appearance here in August 2001 in the second edition of the Asian Test Championship.

Although there have been plenty of first-class matches at this venue, Inzamam, who now lives in Lahore with his parents and family, never played in of the any domestic matches.

On the other hand, Shabbir Ahmed has played a lot of first-class matches here.