Shahid Afridi: “I swear, I never talked about making Shaheen the captain, nor did I ever lobby. I am not involved in these things. I don’t have to, and I don’t like it either”
Image taken by: Bimal Mirwani
Iconic Pakistan power-hitter Shahid Afridi swore that he never lobbied for his son-in-law Shaheen Shah Afridi to become T20I captain.
Shaheen replaced Azam as skipper after the latter resigned from the leadership position in all three formats following the 2023 ICC Cricket World Cup.
While questions have been raised about whether Shahid played a part in Shaheen getting the role, the former interim chief selector made it clear that he doesn’t get “involved in these things.”
“I swear, I never talked about making Shaheen the captain, nor did I ever lobby. I am not involved in these things. I don’t have to, and I don’t like it either,” he was quoted as saying by Cricket Pakistan.
In the World Cup, Afridi took 18 wickets in nine matches, which included a five-wicket haul against champions Australia, at an average of 26.72.
Pakistan kicked off their campaign with successive wins over the Netherlands and Sri Lanka before faltering against India, Australia, Afghanistan and South Africa.
Despite fighting back to defeat Bangladesh and New Zealand, they could not advance to the semi-finals.
To add insult to injury, the men in green lost their last group stage match against England by 93 runs.
Shaheen and Azam will now be involved in Pakistan’s three-match Test series against Australia, which gets underway on December 14 in Perth.
Pakistan Squad for Australia Test Series: Shan Masood (captain), Aamer Jamal, Abdullah Shafique, Abrar Ahmed, Babar Azam, Faheem Ashraf, Hasan Ali, Imam-ul-Haq, Khurram Shahzad, Mir Hamza, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Mohammad Wasim Jnr, Noman Ali, Saim Ayub, Salman Ali Agha, Sarfaraz Ahmed (wk), Saud Shakeel and Shaheen Shah Afridi
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