Former Pakistan captain and interim head of selectors Shahid Afridi has added a new twist to the ongoing captaincy saga in the Pakistani cricket team. Babar Azam’s throne as skipper is under severe pressure after a luckless 2022 in which they went winless at home in Tests and underperformed in limited overs as well.
Though Babar captained Pakistan to the finals of the Asia Cup and T20 World Cup, Pakistan lost both summit clashes and the T20I series at home to Australia and England and the ODI series to New Zealand.
A few reports had emerged that Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) was considering Shan Masood as a strong candidate after he was named as a vice-captain for the ODI series against New Zealand.
However, Shahid Afridi has ridiculed the call from PCB, questioning the logic behind picking Masood for the role, revealing that he was not even in consideration for a spot in the squad for the team for the New Zealand series.
"Shan Masood should not have been named as vice-captain of the ODI squad. Chairman of the PCB should have taken captain or chief selector under confidence; he was neither under consideration by me nor by Babar Azam for the first two ODI's against New Zealand," Afridi said on Samaa TV.
"Shan Masood cannot be named as captain or vice-captain of the Pakistan Cricket Team based on his performances for Derbyshire," he added.
Afridi also spoke about the ongoing criticism raging at Babar over his leadership and also on split captaincy in the Pakistan cricket team.
He said: "I believe that Babar Azam has a lot of room for improvement in his captaincy. I am not in favor of having three different captains for the different game formats, and instead suggest naming one captain for ODI and Test cricket and a separate captain for T20s."
