Afridi - Captain or Manager?

“A man is a leader when he starts thinking out of the box.  A man who just manage cannot be called a leader”.

It was a time when Younis Khan was Captain of Pakistan cricket team and  Pakistan cricket fans were thinking that we found a  good leader after Imran Khan. But he could not deliver because of his strict principles and emotional attitude. After him, players like Mohammad Yousaf and  Salman Butt  were given responsibilities of captaincy but all were failed for different reason.

After appointment of Shahid Khan Afridi, hopes for betterment were again alive in the minds of Pakistan cricket fans, they were expecting him as a real leader.  But if we look at the captaincy record of Shahid Afridi, he could not deliver according the wishes of fans. He doesn’t know   how and when to take a decision. He just fallows the plan made by team management. As a captain you have to take decisions according to current game situation on the field. But in some cases when people were expecting him to take Power play, to change the bowlers, to change the batting order and to change even his own batting number, he act like a computer and continue the strategy made by the team management.  Up to now, he failed to take his own decisions according to the situation; therefore, he must rethink regarding his captaincy strategy. People are expecting aggressive captaincy from him, but he likes to play defensive cricket as captain. Now look at the tour of West Indies, selection committee has given him young talent to test them, but because of losing fear he is not giving these new players enough chances. Selection committee has completed his job, its now Afridi who has to complete his responsibilities.

What was need for playing with Misbah in the T20.  West Indies has introduced more then 5 new players yet. In the ODIS again no good decision were taken either in team selection and neither on the field. So he must do the following in upcoming matches:-

Try all new players in next three ODIs as well as in Test

Replace  Misbah in next upcoming  ODIs

Let complete full quota of overs from new bowlers

Try more young batsmen and change the batting line as experiment for future.

Written By: Farid Khan (Cricket Analyst)