“Not in my hands” – Pakistan’s Shaheen Afridi on captaincy aspirations

Pakistan’s gun fast bowler Shaheen Shah Afridi has opened up on his captaincy aspirations. Afridi admitted that leadership is something that is not in his control and his ultimate focus is to deliver the goods for the country as a player.

Afridi has performed consistently for Men in Green in all three formats. Meanwhile, Afridi was appointed as T20I captain after Babar Azam resigned from captaincy in all three formats of the game in November 2023. Afridi led against New Zealand in an away series, which Pakistan lost by 4-1. But Shaheen Afridi was removed as captain because of workload management. 

Babar Azam led Pakistan in the T20 World Cup 2024 but the team could not even make it to the Super Eight stage after they were stunned by the USA and also lost to arch-rivals India.

Shaheen Afridi said in a media interaction in Karachi, “Pakistan is first and foremost for me, then it’s the team, and I come after that. I don’t like to think about the past. My job is to be in the present and I don’t think about the future. If your present is good, you can be well-prepared for the future. Captaincy is not in my hands and I have never played my cricket for captaincy. I want to play cricket for Pakistan and I will do that with dignity.”

Meanwhile, Shaheen Afridi, captain of Lahore Qalandars, is the most successful captain in the Pakistan Super League as he has led his team to glory on two occasions with 17 wins out of 27 played with a winning percentage of 70.

On the other hand, it has been reported that Afridi could be dropped for the upcoming Test series against Bangladesh.

Afridi said as quoted by Cricket Pakistan, “I don’t know if I’m being dropped from the Test series [against Bangladesh]. My role is to play cricket, and I would do that with dignity.”