Babar Azam was heavily criticized for his captaincy after 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.
Many experts advised to remove him from captaincy and suggested different names who could fit that role. However, few recent reports claim that Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is considering Shan Masood as a strong candidate, after he was named as a vice-captain for the ODI series against New Zealand. This has not been received well by former Interim Chief Selector, Shahid Afridi, who ridiculed the call from PCB, questioning the logic behind picking Masood for the role.
“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.
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“Shan Masood cannot be named as captain or vice-captain of the Pakistan Cricket Team based on his performances for Derbyshire,” he added.
Shahid Afridi also gave his verdict on the ongoing criticism on Babar 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.”