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It’s been almost year since Shahid Afridi became the captain of Pakistan team,  He got the job after Mohammad Yousaf was unceremoniusly removed as the captain during the Australian tour in Jan this year, the fans were led to believe by a huge section of the media that Afridi will lead Pakistan aggressively and in the shorter format he is the best choice as a leader. Afridi lost the first match as captain and also got banned for two T20 matches for ball tampering.

Afridi’s ball tampering act was clearly an attempt to insult and malign his own bowlers in front of the whole world but the strong Karachi based media twisted the story to save their hero and made it look like his frustration and hunger to win matches at any cost. The administrators failed to read that sign for things to happen in future just chose to fine him and retained him as the captain.

Out of the thirteen Odi matches in which Afridi stood as captain Pakistan has only won five out of which one match was against Bangladesh and one was against an under strength West Indies.

His batting average is 65 in the matches that Pakistan won and just 22 in the 8 matches which Pakistan lost he scored 109 against Srilanka in Dumbulla if you take that innings out then in the remaining 7 matches he has scored just 69 runs. There has been a myth about his bowling prowess his bowling has taken a dip since he became the captain he took only 14 wickets in 13 matches @ average of 41.78 which in the preceeding year was 32.33 his econ rate has also declined.

With age and responsibility one becomes more mature but that is not the case with Afridi. He made the fans believe for a brief period preceeding his captaincy that he was a reformed man and has become more mature and would bat more responsibly he played a few responsible innings under Younis Khan in the T20 World cup and helped Pakistan win the tournament and also played a few exciting innings in the champions trophy but since he took over from Younis Khan he is back to his old ways after four five matches plays one good innings and utterly fails in the rest.

The fans never know which Afridi will show up the responsible one or the stupid one, the matches in which he scores big runs he starts with a reasonable caution and doesn’t try to hit every ball out of the park and as a result manages to contribute decent runs to the teams total, but in matches where stupidity takes over him he pays no attention to match situation never assess the risk situation and just plays suicidal shots. In the eight Odi matches that Pakistan have lost under him his scores are as following: 1, 109, 32, 19, 9, 0, 1, 7 

Pakistan have lost 8 out of 15 T20 matches played under him which is a very low rate of success before him Pakistan had a near perfect T20 record but still those leaders were not considered good enough to lead.

The thing which disturbs me the most is that when the middle order scores he plays very irresponsibly and losses all the advantage, had he stayed on the crease for just two more overs in todays match Pakistan would have won, he didn’t paid any attention to the match situation and just started playing high risk shots.

Many just attribute his suicidal shots to his over aggression but since when stupidity and aggression became synoymus terms. He is one of the most experienced Odi players in the world it is naive to believe that he doesn’t understand different match situations and doesn’t know his responsibility, he is quick to point fingers at others in every post match conference and never holds his words but when will he realize his own responsibilities.

If he bats at #5 or #6 that means that he has to play an important role as a batsman or else we should accept the fact that our tail starts from the number he comes to bat in.

He has cozy relations with Ijaz Butt’s administration because he is acting like a dummy, he dropped Umar Akmal, and Misbah and chose to play Farhat and Shafiq, why?

Why he has not stood up against the selection of Farhat in the team?

PCB has metted very harsh treatment to a player like Shoaib Akhtar over the years who have been the most consistent performer for Pakistan and a genuine match winner but it is very surprising that in last 16 years they haven’t found a way to discipline Afridi.

I have no doubt in my mind that Pakistan will get knocked out in the first round of the world cup if Afridi remained the captain of the team, he has failed to unite the team has failed to inspire them or to lead them from the front consistently.

For the past 16 years we have given this guy the licensce to be stupid but can we afford give the licensce to be stupid to our captain.

PCB should get rid of ”Captain stupid” if they sincerely want the team to perform in the next world cup.