Zaka Ashraf openly declares Shahid Afridi a liar on Shaheen Afridi-Mohammad Rizwan captaincy for Pakistan

Ex-PCB chairman Zaka Ashraf has opened up on Shahid Afridi’s claims in which he suggested that Mohammad Rizwan should be appointed Pakistan’s captain. In a huge surprise, Ashraf has denied Afridi’s claims.

Shahid Afridi has repeatedly given his weight behind Mohammad Rizwan to be appointed as the next Pakistan captain. He even claimed that he never wanted his son-in-law Shaheen Afridi to take up the captaincy and instead trusted Rizwan’s skills.

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Zaka Ashraf denies Shahid Afridi’s claims about Mohammad Rizwan

During an interaction with the reporters, Zaka Ashraf was asked by one of the reporters regarding the advice of Shahid Afridi to appoint Mohammad Rizwan as the Pakistan captain during his tenure as PCB chairman.

Ashraf denied such claims and stated that he did not receive any such advice from Shahid Afridi. “I didn’t receive any such advice (from Shahid Afridi),” Ashraf said.

Pakistan’s performance in all formats

Pakistan cricket team is going through a huge crisis right now. While the team is not performing well, the captaincy in all the formats is also under the scanner. Currently, Shan Masood is the Test captain while Babar Azam is the captain in ODIs and T20Is.

However, the team has been constantly underperforming for the past year or so. The performance of the respective captains hasn’t been the best as well. Both Shan Masood and Babar Azam are in danger of losing their roles right now.

Under Babar Azam, Pakistan failed to qualify for the ODI World Cup 2023 semi-finals last year. The team even lost to Afghanistan in one match and received outrage from the fans and the country’s former cricketers.

Babar left the captaincy after the World Cup and Shaheen Afridi was appointed as the new captain of the T20I team. As it seemed like Shaheen would lead the team in the T20 World Cup 2024, he was removed from the role and Babar Azam was reinstated into the role by the new PCB chairman Mohsin Naqvi.

Pakistan in T20 World Cup 2024

The team then lost a T20I to Ireland just before the T20 World Cup 2024. However, the worst was yet to come as they lost to the USA and India in the group stages of the T20 World Cup and failed to qualify for the Super 8 stage. The USA finished above them in the points table and achieved a historic qualification.

In Test cricket as well, Pakistan’s performance has gone downhill under the leadership of Shan Masood. They were clean-swept 0-3 in the Test series in Australia despite giving the home team a run for their money.

Recently, Pakistan were clean-swept 0-2 in a Test series to Bangladesh at home. The defeats to Bangladesh in this series are the only defeats they have ever suffered to Bangladesh in Test cricket. It also means that Shan Masood has lost all five matches in which he has led Pakistan so far.