Shahid Afridi has been warned by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) to adopt a suitable attitude, contending the skipper’s act of criticising his team-mates in the media is not conveying a good message.
Sources told Dawn that Afridi, who met PCB chairman Ijaz Butt here on Monday, apologised for his open criticism while assuring the chairman he would not repeat the act.
Furthermore, the chairman also asked Afridi — a veteran of 306 One-day Internationals and 42 Twenty20 games — to improve his own performance instead of criticising other players, sources claimed.
It may be mentioned here that the PCB is yet to announce the captain for the upcoming six-match ODI series against New Zealand starting on Jan 22 after the end of the two-match Test series.
Afridi, 30, was named captain only for the three-match Twenty20 series against New Zealand which Pakistan lost 2-1.
After losing the first match of the Twenty20 series, Afridi while commenting on the match, had criticised his middle-order batsmen for throwing their wickets away cheaply.
Later, the all-rounder, who has so far accumulated 6431 runs in ODIs besides claiming 288 wickets in this format, also criticised the performance of his bowlers.
However, sources said, Afridi’s own performance as a player also remains debatable as he could only muster 601 runs in 18 matches during the year 2010 at an ordinary average of 33.38 with two centuries, one being against Bangladesh.
In addition, the flamboyant player’s leg-spin bowling show during last year can be termed quite ordinary with stats of 19 wickets at a costly 45.05.
Similarly, in Twenty20 Afridi’s on-field show during 2010 remained very much below average with batting figures of 16 matches, 204 runs, 13.60 runs per innings. In bowling, he could claim 16 wickets at 24.87, which considering the Twenty20 format, is not very impressive average.
The Pakistan skipper, however, ended the year with a 4-14 show with the leather, helping his team furnish a resounding 103-run win against New Zealand in the third and final Twenty20 at Christchurch.
But only after the hosts had already secured the three-match series.
