According to reports the Pakistan Cricket Board’s selection committee has decided to remove Shahid Afridi from the list of players that have central contracts. According to reports, Umar Akmal and Ahmed Shehzad might join the former skipper in losing their central contracts.
The trio had been dropped from the tentative squad for the upcoming series tour of England. While Chief Selector Inzamam-ul-Haq had softer words for Afridi, who he asked to ‘rest’ as the board gave younger players a chance, both Akmal and Shehzad were dropped over indiscipline.
Afridi skippered Pakistan in the 2011 ODI World Cup
Why does Afridi prefer to linger on, and further tarnish his already scrutinised legacy?
While it’s a no-brainer that Afridi - who is not likely to play any cricket for Pakistan this year at the very least - would have lost out on his central contract, the reverberations of the move will be felt everywhere. This is especially true at a time when PCB is clamping down on indiscipline and trying to put the message across that no player is bigger than the team. Even the most diehard of Afridi’s fans might just begin to concede that the former captain might just have missed his final chance to leave on a (relative) high, when he opted out of announcing his retirement following the debacle that the World T20 was.
Screengrab of Afridi's then fastest ODI century in his second match
After a spree of T20 cricket, starting from the tour to New Zealand, then the PSL, the Asia Cup and then the World T20, Pakistan will play a very limited number of T20s in England and against the West Indies and New Zealand in UAE (or Sri Lanka?). And so, Inzi’s claim that it’s only logical that young blood should be given a chance to build a competent T20 squad is perfectly understandable.
And yet Afridi is adamant that he is ‘available for Pakistan’, despite having missed the boot camp, the fitness test before that and now the central contract.
On multiple occasions Afridi has claimed that Pakistan ‘doesn’t really have any youngsters coming through’ so it’s not like he’s ‘taking over someone’s position’ - hardly the words that one might want to hear from the then captain of the national side.
Afridi celebrating Pakistan's famous Asia Cup win over India in 2014
Afridi’s latest tantrum has targeted ‘seniors’ for making him the scapegoat of the team’s recent struggles.
“It was disappointing that people lied and tried to drag my name in the mud,” he said. “[The seniors] tried to save their positions and then I was subjected to a trial by media. We played badly and lost but it was not correct to blame one man only. It was a collective failure.”
Afridi is now looking forward to playing for English County Hampshire for the first time in five years. “It will help me force my way back in the Pakistan Twenty20 team and I will always be ready to play for my country,” he said.
In his last ten T20 matches Afridi scored 107 runs, averaging 13.4. And 49 of these runs came in a single innings against Bangladesh. He took seven wickets in these matches, averaging 36 a piece.
No matter what the ‘seniors’ have been ‘up to’, these numbers in a span of ten matches (including two important tournaments like the World T20 and the Asia Cup) are hardly awe-inspiring.
Even so, even his harshest critics - and this clan has been growing exponentially in the recent past – would have allowed him a fond farewell after the World T20. While many might question how exactly it transpired, it is nevertheless a fact that he has played for Pakistan for 20 years.
He was instrumental in ensuring the 2009 World Cup triumph and even the 2007 runners-up finish in the only format that he has made himself available for. And considering Pakistan’s legacy of acrimonious farewells, a voluntary retirement by Afridi at the culmination of a tournament that he had helped his side win, seven years ago, would have been a high by our standards.
And yet he preferred lingering on, and further tarnishing his increasingly scrutinised legacy.
The next World T20 is in four years time. One never knows, but even Afridi might not be delusional enough to think he might have a shot at it.
So why go on to continue being a burden on the national side, when he could have bid adieu and continued playing PSL, county cricket and other leagues around the world?
