David Wiese: “I did feel like it was a little bit harsh on him for them to take it away so soon”
Image courtesy of: Unsplash
Former Namibia all-rounder David Wiese believes it was “a little bit harsh” for Pakistan to remove Shaheen Shah Afridi as T20I captain so soon.
Afridi was only in charge for one T20I series against New Zealand, which took place in early 2024.
Soon after, Afridi lost the leadership role and Wiese admitted that he thought the 25-year-old would be “given an extended run”.
He added that the left-arm seamer has enjoyed a lot of success as captain of the Lahore Qalandars in the Pakistan Super League (PSL) as the team have won three titles under him in 2022, 2023 and 2025.
“I still felt when they gave him the job, he was the right guy for the job. He’d had success in the PSL, winning back-to-back trophies. He’s an experienced player now, he’s one of the first names on your team sheet, and he’s a leader. He leads by example the whole time,” Wiese said in a video posted by respected journalist Saj Sadiq on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“I did feel like it was a little bit harsh on him for them to take it away so soon. I don’t know if they felt that he wasn’t ready or maybe the workload for him to lead the bowling attack and be captain was a bit too much. I’m not quite sure, they must have had their reasons, but when he got made captain, I thought that he would get given an extended run. Unfortunately that didn’t happen, but that doesn’t take away his capability as captain.
“I still back him 100 percent and I still see him as a quality leader. His cricketing instinct, I’ve always said from the start, his instinct in the game is pretty spot on most of the time, so hopefully he’ll be given that opportunity again at some stage.”
During the 2025 PSL, Afridi played an instrumental role in leading the Qalandars to the title as he was the highest wicket-taker with 19 wickets in 13 games at an average of 16.42 and an economy rate of 7.76.
Even though he was unbelievably effective with the ball, Afridi was not included in Pakistan’s squad for their three-match T20I series against Bangladesh, which the men in green won 3-0.
Pakistan Squad for Bangladesh T20I Series: Salman Ali Agha (captain), Shadab Khan (vice-captain), Abbas Afridi, Abrar Ahmed, Faheem Ashraf, Fakhar Zaman, Haris Rauf, Hasan Ali, Hassan Nawaz, Hussain Talat, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Haris (wicketkeeper), Muhammad Irfan Khan, Naseem Shah, Sahibzada Farhan (wicketkeeper) and Saim Ayub