Karachi: Shahid Afridi was Tuesday named as Pakistan captain for the World Twenty20 championship.
Afridi, 30, will lead a 15-man squad in the tournament, beginning April 30 in the West Indies. Pakistan are the defending champions.
The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) had named their squad for the World Twenty20 earlier this month but did not name the captain, fuelling speculations that apart from Afridi the PCB chairman Ijaz Butt is also mulling over other options like senior all-rounder Abdul Razzaq, Misbah-ul-Haq and Salman Butt.
Afridi was named Pakistan’s Twenty20 captain soon after the team claimed the World Twenty20 title in England last summer under Younis Khan’s captaincy. Younis, however, retired from Twenty20 cricket the day his team achieved the memorable triumph.
Afridi was the obvious choice as he is regarded as an aggressive captain and is counted among the most destructive all-rounders in the shortest version of the game.
But Afridi’s captaincy came under a cloud when he was caught biting the ball in Pakistan’s fifth and final One-day International against Australia in Perth and was subsequently banned for two Twenty20 Internationals. In his absence, Shoaib Malik led Pakistan in the one-off T20 game against Australia at the MCG and later in a two-match series against England in Dubai.
Malik was in contention for the World Twenty20 captaincy but the all-rounder was banned for one year by the PCB earlier this month over indiscipline and was thus ruled out of the event.
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