Sacking http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Ijaz-Butt-c64128’s Pakistan Cricket Board
A question many Pakistanis will ask themselves for years is, did Ijaz Butt the mighty chairman of the Pakistan Cricket board (PCB) make a bad call by deposing Shahid Afridi as the captain of the one-day outfit of the Pakistan national team. Although there
were enough rumours in the media beforehand, about the decision PCB was about to make, nonetheless, there were still who believed that perhaps the officials of the PCB were not dumb enough to make such an illogical and irrational judgment.
However, after his sacking the PCB announced the one-day squad for a two-match one-day series against minnows http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Ireland-c751 and the thing that was ironic in this announcement was the fact that Afridi was retained in the 16-member squad, well one would like to
ask Butt that if there were problems regarding the discipline of the hard hitting all-rounder, then why was he named in the team.
A player with an attitude problem shouldn’t represent the national squad in the first place and being the senior most in the team, it makes no sense to take away the leadership belt from a player who had finally managed to bring some stability in the unpredictable
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755 squad.
According to insiders, Butt wanted to replace Afridi before the International Cricket Council (http://www.senore.com/Cricket/ICC-World-Cup-2011-c100625) World Cup 2011; however, due to the mounting pressure in favour of the all-rounder, Butt was forced to retain him for the mega event.
There is no denying the fact, that the team which was given to Afridi for the World Cup was in disarray and written-off by the rest of the world and perhaps Butt thought that the team was destined to doom in the world tournament which would then force Afridi
into falling to his ultimate demise after an early exit by Pakistan.
However, to everyone’s surprise, the Men in Green fought like tigers under the aggressive captaincy of the http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750.
Even after this defeat, the public praised the valiant effort of the team and no one called for an immediate firing of the skipper. In a country where defeat in a cricket match against their biggest enemy is never taken lightly, it was a rare sight to watch
cricket enthusiasts rally behind Afridi and his men when they returned home.
Unlike in the past, this time no bricks were thrown at the homes of the players, which should have been a sign for Butt to cut Afridi some slack.
For the time being, even the PCB treated the team as conquerors and when Afridi decided to pull out of the five-match one-day series in the http://www.senore.com/Cricket/West-Indies-c760, it was the board officials who insisted that the skipper should lead the squad. Ultimately Afridi adhered
to their calls and chose to tag along the national team.
Pakistan won the series by taking the first three matches, however, later Afridi and head coach http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Waqar-Younis-Maitla-c96193 locked horns over the selection of the playing eleven in the fourth and fifth match. According to reports, Afridi wanted to give youngsters a shot,
while Waqar did not support the idea.
Logically after winning the series, it made sense to give the young blokes a go and as captain, Afridi was perhaps right.
However, he never should have challenged Waqar’s authority and should have tried to resolve the matter peacefully. Nonetheless, instead of removing him from his post the PCB should have warned or even fined the cricketer.
Now the big ask is whether the team will be able to perform under another skipper (http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Misbah-ul-Haq-c1972) who will introduce new ideas and will most probably upset the winning strategies that had already been formed and executed by the former skipper.
Misbah is the fifth one-day captain of Pakistan in three years which is testament to the impatient policies of the PCB. The board needs to understand that teams cannot perform when their captain’s are replaced at random. Perhaps, it is high time for Butt
to reassess his poor choice of decisions for the betterment of Pakistan Cricket.
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