New Delhi: Former Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi has urged the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) to restrict the national team to India for any tournaments until India doesn’t visit Pakistan to play cricket. The comments were made amid the fracas of hosting the ICC Champions Trophy 2025.
Pakistan, who are given the hosting rights for the tournament, are facing a challenging test to accept the hybrid model after its counterpart – the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) – has refused to send the Indian men’s cricket team across the border after consultation with the Indian government.
There has been a lot of reports over Pakistan’s demands that they will only accept the hybrid model for Champions Trophy if the Pakistan teams also get the same benefit when India hosts ICC tournaments in future.
While speaking at the Urdu conference at the Karachi Arts Council, Afridi stressed on the importance of PCB to become self-reliance to make strong decisions, particularly in ICC events. He also said Pakistan should maintain its firm stance that they won’t travel to India just like their opposite numbers have maintained their stance.
“Pakistan cricket should be strong and self sufficient and take strong principled decisions. If India can’t come and play in Pakistan then there is no reason for us to go and play any event in India,” he said.
Afridi also said that the global cricket body has to ensure the integrity of the game and shouldn’t only focus on the monetary benefits over it.
“Even the ICC now has to decide whether its responsibility is to ensure every member nation gets to play cricket or it just wants to make money,” he added.
Afridi speaks on Pakistan’s captaincy changes in white-ball formats
Pakistan wicketkeeper-batter Mohammad Rizwan was appointed the new white-ball skipper in October. This was their third captain this year in particular. Fast bowler Shaheen Afridi was given the responsibility as the new T20I skipper at the start of the year, but a massive failure in New Zealand, going down with a 4-1 loss, stripped him off the captaincy duties with Babar Azam once again appointed in the role.
A few months after Pakistan failed to progress in the Super 8 stage of the T20 World Cup 2024, Babar Azam relinquished the leadership duties, second time in a space of two years. Speaking on the captaincy musical chairs in the national team, Afridi said Shaheen was affected by the decision to sack him from the role.
“When Shaheen was made Pakistan T20 captain I was against it and I said that the board should have made Mohammad Rizwan the captain as he was the best choice. But once they made Shaheen captain it was also wrong for the PCB to remove him as captain after just one series. It affected him,” Shahid Afridi said.
Shahid Afridi wants the PCB to boycott ICC tournaments in India unless the latter plays in Pakistan. He also criticizes the frequent captaincy changes in Pakistan’s white-ball formats, highlighting the negative impact on players like Shaheen Afridi. Cricket Sports News: Latest Cricket News, Cricket Live Score, Sports Breaking News from Sports Today
