What next after Afridi's retirement?
Pakistan were not only beaten by http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Shahid-c89347 Afridi-decision to call it quits in the Test match format. Afridi decided, for the third time in his career, that Test cricket was not a format he enjoyed and quit the game again. What makes the matter worse for Pakistan is that he was the captain of the side as well and had been appointed around a month prior to the start of the first Test.
Afridi’s retirement has now raised many questions. The biggest one of them all will be related to who the next captain of the Pakistani Test squad will be. If one were to believe the Pakistani manager, Afridi had picked up a side strain in the previous tournament, and aggravated it in this game. This could mean that Afridi may not play the second Test match and if that was to be the case, the role needs to be decided on a short-term basis.
The manager of the side, Yawar Saeed has said that given that Salman Butt is the vice-captain of the side, it is very likely that he will be given the reign of the side for the second Test match at Headingley which begins in four days.
However, he also added that the decision will be finally taken by the cricket board.
Even the outgoing Afridi endorsed the manager’s view and called Butt an astute leader for the role. He said that he thought that Butt would be able to do a good job.
It is not as if the Board has too many contenders for the job. There were many contenders for the job earlier, and these included the likes of Salman Butt, Shoaib Malik, Younis Khan, Kamran Akmal and Mohammad Yousuf.
Butt is the current vice-captain of the side and the most favoured for the job, but one who is constantly under the pressure of keeping his place in the side for his batting. Then, there is Malik, who has struggled to bat or bowl, and has earlier been accused of causing rifts within the side, while Younis Khan has had a tiff with the Board over come disciplinary issues. Akmal isn’t the best wicket-keeper in the country, and drops a catch or two every game, whereas Yousuf has retired from cricket after a squabble with the board.
In such a scenario, the best opportunity lies at the door of Butt, who has usually been free from controversy as well. Whether he will take up the challenge and do as well as one expects him to do is another question altogether.
However, the second question that needs to be asked is the role of the cricket board in this issue. It is almost embarrassing that the Board had actually coaxed Afridi to captain the side and it took him just one Test match to give up on it. Questions like, ‘is the cricket board so bereft of personnel that it needed to bring back a twice-retired and a reluctant player to captain the side’ will be asked off them.
Afridi had played Test cricket since his debut in 1996, but retired from the format in 2004. He made a comeback in 2006, played two games before retiring again. Now, more than three years on, it has taken him only one Test match to repeat it. Was the board that naive?
It is not only a question of Afridi alone. One also needs to take into consideration the fact that since the turn of 2009, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755 has already seen four captains lead their side, and if Butt gets appointed as the leader, he will be the fifth! Frequent changing of a captain can hardly be a sign of stability, and the PCB will probably need to understand that if they need a better Test side, they need that stability.
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