Sarfraz Ahmed named T20 captain
PCB chairman says keeper is a natural choice to lead T20 side
The wicketkeeper replaces Shahid Afridi after Pakistan’s early exit from the Twenty20 World Cup.
islamabad — Wicketkeeper Sarfraz Ahmed replaced Shahid Afridi as captain of Pakistan’s Twenty20 team on Tuesday after the national team made an early exit from the World Twenty20.
Afridi quit as captain after Pakistan lost three of its four group matches at the World Twenty20 tournament in India but said he wanted to continue playing the shortest format of international cricket.
“I spoke to Sarfraz this morning and conveyed to him that he was our natural choice for this position,” PCB chairman Shaharyar Khan said in a statement. “His appointment is open-ended. I wish him good luck in his new role.”
Ahmed, 28, played in all the four World Twenty20 matches but batted lower down the order throughout the tournament despite having a good strike rate of 120.24 in 21 Twenty20 internationals.
Ahmed led Quetta Gladiators in Pakistan’s first professional domestic Twenty20 league in February before losing to the Misbah-ul-Haqled Islamabad United in the final.
Ahmed made his international debut in 2007, a year after he led Pakistan to win the Under-19 World Cup. He has scored 1,077 runs in 58 ODIs and 1,296 runs in 21 test matches at an impressive average of 46.28. Last year he was made Pakistan’s vice-captain for both T20 and ODI teams. Ahmed said it was a big achievement for him to lead Pakistan in the shortest format.
“It’s an honour for me that I’ve been made the captain. I was looking at various things since I was made the vice-captain and have noted it down,” Ahmed told reporters in his hometown Karachi.
“It’s (captaincy’s) a difficult thing because the whole nation is looking at you. We will sit and see what the better solution of Pakistan cricket is and will try to make a good team which gives good performances.”
Pakistan is likely to play only three T20 internationals in the remainder of 2016, one against England and two versus the world champion West Indies.
Former Test captain Rashid Latif doesn’t think that’s enough to properly assess Ahmed’s ability
We will sit and see what the better solution of Pakistan cricket is and will try to make a good team which gives good performances
Sarfraz Ahmed
as captain. “The decision to appoint Ahmed is no more than damage control of PCB,” Latif said. “The cricket board is trying to put behind what happened at the World Twenty20 where we could win only one group match against Bangladesh.”
Latif said the PCB should also replace ODI captain Azhar Ali and “bring in Sarfraz” so that the wicketkeeper-batsman could get more experience as a skipper in the international arena. “Making him captain for only Twenty20 is not enough,” Latif said. —