WEB DESK: Former captain Shahid Afridi has stated that Babar Azam should have played under Shaheen Afridi’s captaincy, which would have increased his respect in his and the world’s eyes.
Last year, after the poor performance of the Pakistani team in the World Cup held in India, Babar Azam decided to step down from captaincy. Subsequently, Shan Masood was appointed as the Test captain, while Shaheen Afridi was given the T20 captaincy.
Later, the team faced a whitewash in the 3-Test series against Australia and a 1-4 defeat in the 5-T20 series against New Zealand. Following this, the PCB reappointed Babar Azam as the T20 and ODI captain before the T20 World Cup. However, this time, Shaheen refused to accept the vice-captaincy under Babar.
Speaking to the private media about this issue, Shahid Afridi mentioned that if Babar Azam had taken a stand in the past and said he wanted to play under Shaheen’s captaincy, his respect would have increased even more in his and the world’s eyes.
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Afridi reiterated his complaint, saying that if Shaheen was appointed captain, it was very wrong to remove him from the captaincy immediately.
Furthermore, talking about groupings within the national team during the T20 World Cup, the former cricketer said that groupings weaken any captain. When groups start forming in a team, it means the captain’s respect is diminishing in the players’ eyes. Due to groupings, the captain becomes weak because you criticize bowlers for every failure, but batsmen are never criticized. If the captain is strong, such groupings would never emerge.
On the other hand, former cricketer Sohail Tanvir endorsed Shahid Afridi’s stance, clarifying that this is not just about Shaheen. If any other player, apart from Shaheen, was made captain in place of Babar Azam and then immediately removed, that player would not have liked it either.
