Shaheen Afridi became the youngest skipper to lead his team to victory in a T20 league last Sunday (February 27). The 21-year-old left-arm pacer captained Lahore Qalandars to their first-ever Pakistan Super League (PSL) trophy. Qalandars conquered defending champions Multan Sultans by 42 runs with their captain and spearhead leading from the front. Shaheen bagged […]
Shaheen Afridi became the youngest skipper to lead his team to victory in a T20 league last Sunday (February 27). The 21-year-old left-arm pacer captained Lahore Qalandars to their first-ever Pakistan Super League (PSL) trophy.
Qalandars conquered defending champions Multan Sultans by 42 runs with their captain and spearhead leading from the front. Shaheen bagged figures of 3 for 30 off his 4 overs in a critical performance that helped Qalandars dismiss the in-form Sultans to just 138 after setting up a daunting 180/5 of their own.
After the great victory, Qalandars’ head coach Aqib Javed was effusive in his praise of Shaheen Afridi and his leadership skills. In an interview with YouTube channel Paktv.tv, Javed, the former Pakistan quick, went to the extent of saying Shaheen should be made the new limited-overs captain of the country.
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But Javed’s remarks were countered by former Pakistan skipper Salman Butt, who said it is way too early to consider Shaheen Afridi as a captaincy successor of the national team. Butt made a separate point as well, adding that throwing up too many different names for captaincy is not good for the team’s culture and welfare.
Pakistan are currently led by Babar Azam across Tests, ODIs and T20Is with a deputy in star wicketkeeper-batter Mohammad Rizwan, whose stocks have risen over the last few seasons since he has replaced ex-captain Sarfaraz Ahmed.
“He (Shaheen Afridi) captained really well, no doubt. He showed his skills but there is no need to drive in seventh gear. Of course, Aaqib bhai was coach so he has his visions, but I don’t think this should be talked about at the moment,” Butt was quoted as saying over his YouTube channel.
“Almost all of them are in the same age group. If we go about like this, even Rizwan can be ready, Babar is ready.. there are 4-5 players who can lead the team but it isn’t good for the team’s health. Yes, you should have a leadership group, but to point out and say ‘no, this guy should be captain or that guy should be captain’, that’s not good,” he added.
Butt also mentioned that with this being a crucial year for Pakistan, it is important not to create distractions. Pakistan are in the middle of the second World Test Championship (WTC) cycle, in which they are expected to make the final. The Babar-led side are also building towards the T20 World Cup 2022 in Australia later this year.
Butt fears even Shaheen might start to let the captaincy talk get to his head and lose concentration on his primary skill, especially being the leader of the pace attack.
“Worse is when players start to believe that they should be captain. When this happens, it hurts the team’s health. This is PSL, it is not even close to international cricket. The demands and pressures of international cricket are far higher and there are smart minds operating at that level.”
“So, let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. We have a big series coming up, we have a World Cup this year, we don’t need to go into that direction now,” he concluded.
