Shahid Afridi “out”- A Blunder by Ijaz Butt’s Pakistan Cricket Board
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Shahid-Afridi-c2482 as the captain of the one-day outfit of the Pakistan national team. Although there were enough rumours in the media beforehand, towards the decision which the Pakistan Cricket Board (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.
On Thursday, the PCB finally announced the one-day squad for a two-match one-day series against minnows http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Ireland-c751. 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 be in the 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 Pakistan
squad.
According to insiders, Butt wanted to replace Afridi before the 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 world cup.
There is no denying the fact, that the team which was given to Afridi for the mega event was in disarray and written-off by the rest of the world and perhaps Butt thought that the team was destined to do so bad in the world tournament that Afridi would fall
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/Khan-c71319 from Karachi and finally reached the semi-final of the biggest stage in the world of cricket where the Afridi XI were defeated by arch nemesis
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 opted 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 the calls and chose to tag along the national team.
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 matters 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 will. Perhaps, it is high time that Butt
reassess his poor choice of decisions for the betterment of Pakistan Cricket.
Tags: