LAHORE: Doubts hovering over captaincy of out of form all rounder Shahid Afridi were dispelled when he was retained as captain for the one-day series against New Zealand on Wednesday.Selectors as well as high-ups of the Pakistan Cricket Board had strong reservations to retain Afridi as captain after his poor leadership qualities for not inspiring the team to a success.Afridi’s record strongly strengthened the claim that since July 2009 Pakistan under his captaincy lost seven series, out of nine played till today in one-day international and T-20 format.“Afridi was under fire but PCB Chairman Mohammad Ijaz Butt came to his rescue giving his nod to retain him as a captain after a recent meeting here “, PCB sources told APP.Interestingly Arfidi failed to motivate the team to success in all the seven one-day series played under his captaincy and the team could manage just two successes in T-20 version, one against New Zealand at Dubai and other against Australia in England last year.
The sources said that the selectors were also concerned about the bad patch Afridi is going through. “ He has failed to demonstrate a match winning innings in the one-day internationals since 2009 which was the main worry of the selectors and a time a big question mark was arisen to retain him as a captain but the PCB Chairman put his weight behind him with the feeling that he (Afridi) will definitely be doing his best to perform against New Zealand.“In the same meeting Afridi assured the PCB Chairman that he will be rising to the expectations by coming out of the poor run which finally convinced the Chairman to support him “,they added.At a stage Misbah-ul-Haq whose captaincy qualities were equally praised by former test cricketers and even high-ups of the PCB after recent victory in test against New Zealand, was almost all set to replace Afridi in the one day series but selectors have given him another life line to prove his claims.“ The appointment of Misbah-ul-Haq as ODI vice captain strongly suggests that he is a hanging sword on Afridi who in case fails to deliver Misbah will take over from him “,they asserted.Following is the 16-member squad : Muhammad Hafeez, Kamran Akmal,Younis Khan, Misbah-ul-Haq (vice captain), Asad Shafiq, Umer Akmal, Shahid Afridi (Captain), Abdul Razzaq, Abdul Rehman, Saeed Ajmal, Shoaib Akhtar, Umer Gul, Wahab Riaz, Sohail Tanveer, Tanveer Ahmed and Ahmed Shehzad.The Tour Selection Committee for the ODI series will comprise Manager, Coach, Captain and Vice Captain – APP
