Pakistan cricket team for India tour has announced and a good surprise has been made as cricket team selectors had made decision on merit. Pakistan former captain Shahid Afridi has been dropped from the ODI squad. Other then Afridi who has been dropped from team are Abdul Razzaq, Imran Nazir, both the players also failed to perform consistently in the recent few months.
Shahid Afridi lackluster performance in 2012 shows that there was a right call to drop him from the team. In 16 ODIs played in 2012 he scored 182 runs (average 15.16) and took just 15 wickets (average 43.13). This bowling statistics also include Afridi five wickets against Afghanistan in Sharjah. In T20 International, Afridi scored just 118 runs in eight innings of nine Twenty20 Internationals of 2012. He also bagged eight wickets.
Pakistan’s chief selector Iqbal Qasim has very righly said that Dropping Afridi was a difficult decision, he is no doubt a great player and has the ability to win a game, but the decision has been taken in the interest of the team. Iqbal Qasim also added that Afridi can win back his place in ODI team if he performs well.
Many selectors of Australia, England, South Africa have dropped great players to give them break from international cricket. This helped the team a lot in many ways as experienced players work hard in domestic cricket to earn his place back and the young players get chance to perform at international level. Dropping players like Afridi is not an easy job in South Asia as we can see that Indian selectors are reluctant in replacing Mahendra Singh Dhoni as captain. But hats off to Pakistan cricket team selector in taking this good and wise decision.
