Ahmedabad:He may not be in the peak of his form or fitness but Irfan Pathan today got the green signal from chief selector Dilip Vengsarkar, who cleared the left-arm seamer for next month's World Cup in the West Indies.

After watching the bowler in the Deodhar Trophy match between West Zone and Central Zone, chairman of the selection commitee Vengsarkar and his colleagues Bhupinder Singh Sr. and Ranjib Biswal decided to give their nod for the cricketer.

''All the 15 selected players will go to West Indies to play World Cup'', Vengsarkar told mediaperson.

Vengsarkar flew specially to watch Irfan, who was declared unfit because of sore shoulder and did not play two matches against Sri Lanka.

Irfan, however, had an average outing today and he grabbed two Central Zone wickets for 48 runs after a barren first spell in which he conceded 30 runs in five overs.

There was question mark against Irfan's participation with the player himself asserting he was ''fit'' for the World Cup even though Vengsarkar insisted on a fitness test and wanted to see the player bowl in the Deodhar Trophy match.

Vengsarkar, however, maintained that he did not get the full picture after seeing Irfan bowl just 8.4 overs.

''We can not judge on his fitness on the basis of just 8.4 overs,'' Vengsarkar said, also exuding confidence that the seamer would put up improved show in the world Cup.

UNI

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