Akram backs Afridi to lead Pakistan in all three formats

Lahore, February 10: Shahid Afridi might be serving a two Twenty20 international ban for the ball-tampering saga at Perth, but pace legend Wasim Akram has backed the all-rounder and asserted that he is capable enough to lead Pakistan in all the three formats of the game.

Akram, however, said Afridi needs to learn the rules of the game which can stop him from committing mistakes like the biting of the ball in the fifth and final Test against Australia recently.

He said Pakistan needed one good captain for all three forms of the game ”because we are getting not even one good captain”.

Akram felt that there was no sense to talk of separate Test, one-day and Twenty20 captains in the Pakistan cricket, and suggested the national selectors to pick Afridi for the unified role.

”Afridi can lead the team in all three forms, he is a quality cricketer but needs to learn the rules of the game,” Akram told mediapersons here.

The former Test captain also believes that the Twenty20 captain Afridi has already learnt lessons from the ball-tampering issue in Australia.

”I hope he has learnt his lessons after what happened in Perth.” Afridi was banned for two T20 matches after he was caught by television cameras biting the ball to change its condition, in violation of the rules, in the final ODI of the five-match series, only to force the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) to summon Afridi to appear before an inquiry committee on Friday.

Pakistan cricket team also saw its biggest downfall in recent times in Australia, where they were humiliated by the World Champions in both the Tests (0-3) and ODI series 0-5. This also highly miffed the national board to appoint a six-member committee to inquire what went wrong within the team, which came up with a shambolic show Down Under. Chief selector Iqbal Qasim has already resigned following the defeat, and the PCB is also mulling over to appoint a foreign coach in the hope to revive the game in the country.

Akram, who was one of its member of the inqiry committee, said the committee’s aim was not to punish or sack people.

”The idea is to evaluate the reasons of defeats and not to punish anyone. Through this evaluation we need to give a cushion to the Pakistan team,” said the former pacer, who played 104 Tests and 356 one-day matches for Pakistan.

He also called for some positive move from the side, saying the team needed a strong approach to progress. ”Pakistan cricket must move on after what happened in Australia,” Wasim said. ”No one was expecting such disappointing results, especially in the one-day matches but we need to move on as we have no dearth of talent.” The pace great also felt that the team lacked spirit, the will to win and aggression in their gestures, following the Sydney defeat.

”We weren’t expecting such disappointing results because Australia is not as strong an outfit as it used to be, with lots of great players retired.

”But I still think we need to put all that behind us,” he added.

——-Agencies