'Neither Babar nor I were considering him for ODI squad': Afridi ridicules PCB's logic of naming Shan as vice captain
Shahid Afridi, former interim chief selector, has ridiculed the call from PCB, questioning the logic behind picking Masood for the role, revealing that he was not even in consideration for a position in the team for the New Zealand series.
Babar Azam has been immensely criticised for his captaincy of late, a period where Pakistan lost a home Test series against England, failed to win one against New Zealand and then lost an ODI contest against the Black Caps. There have long been discussions about whether selectors would want to think beyond Babar as a captain, albeit with no official statement so far. However, few reports had emerged that Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) were considering Shan Masood as a strong candidate, after he was named as a vice-captain for the ODI series against New Zealand. But Shahid Afridi, former interim chief selector, has ridiculed the call from PCB, questioning the logic behind picking Masood for the role, revealing that he was not even in consideration for a position in the team for the New Zealand series.
"Shan Masood should not have been named as vice-captain of the ODI squad. Chairman of the PCB should have taken captain or chief selector under confidence; he was neither under consideration by me nor by Babar Azam for the first two ODI's against New Zealand," Afridi said.
"Shan Masood cannot be named as captain or vice-captain of the Pakistan Cricket Team based on his performances for Derbyshire," he added.
The former Pakistan captain also gave his verdict on the ongoing criticism raged at Babar over his leadership and also on split captaincy in Pakistan cricket team.
He said: "I believe that Babar Azam has a lot of room for improvement in his captaincy. I am not in favour of having three different captains for the different game formats, and instead suggest naming one captain for ODI and Test cricket and a separate captain for T20s."
